Chapters 80
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1 01 - Chapter 1: The Overture—After which the Curtain rises upon a Drinking Chorus 36:01
The Overture, After Which the Curtain Rises Upon a Drinking Chorus. A crow, who had flown away with a cheese from a dairy window, sat perched on a tree, looking down at a great big frog in a pool underneath him. The frog's hideous large eyes were goggling out of his head in a manner which appeared quite ridiculous to the old blackamoor, who watched the splay-footed, slimy wretch with that particular grim humor belonging to crows. Not far from the frog, A fat ox was browsing, whilst a few lambs frisked about the meadow or nibbled the grass and buttercups there. Who should come in to the farther end of the field but a wolf? He was so cunningly dressed up in sheep's clothing that the very lambs did not know Master Wolf, nay, one of them, whose dam the wolf had just eaten, after which he had thrown her skin over his shoulders, ran up innocently towards the devouring monster, mistaking him for her mama.
"'He-he," says the fox, sneaking round the hedge-paling over which the tree grew, whereupon the crow was perched, looking down on the frog, who was staring his goggle eyes fit to burst with envy and croaking abuse at the ox. How absurd those lambs are! Yonder silly little knock-kneed bawling does not know the old wolf dressed in the sheep's fleece. He is the same old rogue who gobbled up Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother for lunch, and swallowed Little Red Riding Hood for supper. An owl that was hidden in the hollow of the tree woke up. Oh ho, Master Fox, says she. I cannot see you, but I smell you. If some folks like lambs, other folks like geese, says the owl. "'And your ladyship is fond of mice,' says the fox.
"'The Chinese eat them,' says the owl, "'and I have read that they are very fond of dogs,' continued the old lady. "'I wish they would exterminate every cur of them off the face of the earth,' said the fox. "'And I have also read, in works of travel, that the French eat frogs,' continued the owl. "'Aha! My friend, Crepoux!' Are you there? That was a very pretty concert we sang together last night. If the French devour my brethren, the English eat beef, croaked out the frog. Great, big, brutal, bellowing oxen. Oh, hoo, says the owl, I have heard that the English are toad-eaters, too. But who ever heard of them eating an owl or a fox, madame, says Raynard, or they're sitting down and taking a crow to pick?
adds the polite rogue, with a bow to the old crow who was perched above them with the cheese in his mouth. We are privileged animals, all of us, at least. We never furnish dishes for the odious orgies of man. I am the bird of wisdom, says the owl. I was the companion of Pallas Minerva. I am frequently represented in the Egyptian monuments. "'I have seen you over the British barn doors,' said the fox, with a grin. "'You have a deal of scholarship, Mrs. Owl. I know a thing or two myself, but am, I confess it, no scholar, a mere man of the world, a fellow that lives by his wits, a mere country gentleman.' "'You sneer at scholarship,' continues the owl, with a sneer on her venerable face. "'I read a good deal of a night.' When I am engaged deciphering the cocks and hens at roost, says the fox, it's a pity for all that you can't read.
That board nailed over my head would give you some information. What does it say, says the fox? I can't spell in the daylight, answered the owl, and giving a yawn, went back to sleep till evening in the hollow of her tree. "'A fig for her hieroglyphics,' said the fox, looking up at the crow in the tree. "'What airs our slow neighbor gives herself? She pretends to all the wisdom, whereas your reverences, the crows, are endowed with gifts far superior to these benighted old bigwigs of owls, who blink in the darkness and call their hooting singing. How noble it is to hear a chorus of crows!' There are twenty-four brethren of the Order of St. Corvinus, who have builded themselves a convent near a wood, which I frequent.
What a droning and a chanting they keep up! I protest their reverence's singing is nothing to yours. You sing so deliciously in parts. Do, for the love of harmony, favor me with a solo." While this conversation was going on, the ox was thumping the grass. The frog was eyeing him in such a rage at his superior proportions that he would have spurted venom at him if he could, and that he would have burst. Only that is impossible, from sheer envy. The little lambkin was lying unsuspiciously at the side of the wolf in fleecy hosiery, who did not as yet molest her, being replenished with the mutton, her mama. But now the wolf's eyes began to glare, and his sharp white teeth to show, and he rose up with a growl, and began to think he should like lamb for supper.
"'What large eyes you have got,' bleated out the lamb, with a rather timid look. "'The better to see you with, my dear. What large teeth you have got, the better to—' At this moment, such a terrific yell filled the field that all its inhabitants started with terror. It was from a donkey, who had somehow got a lion's skin, and now came in at the hedge, pursued by some men and boys with sticks and guns. When the wolf in sheep's clothing heard the bellow of the ass in the lion's skin, fancying that the monarch of the forest was near, He ran away as fast as his disguise would let him. When the ox heard the noise, he dashed round the meadow ditch, and with one trample of his hoof squashed the frog who had been abusing him.
When the crow saw the people with guns coming, he instantly dropped the cheese out of his mouth and took to wing. When the fox saw the cheese drop, he immediately made a jump at it, for he knew the donkey's voice and that his asinine bray was not a bit like his royal master's roar, and making for the cheese, fell into a steel trap, which snapped off his tail, without which he was obliged to go into the world pretending, forsooth, that it was the fashion not to wear tails anymore, and that the fox party were better without them. Meanwhile, a boy with a stick came up and belabored Master Donkey until he roared louder than ever. The wolf, with the sheep's clothing draggling about his legs, could not run fast and was detected and shot by one of the men.
The blind old owl, whirring out of the hollow tree, quite amazed at the disturbance, flounced into the face of a plowboy who knocked her down with a pitchfork. The butcher came, and quietly let off the ox and the lamb, and the farmer, finding the fox's brush in the trap, hung it up over his mantelpiece, and always bragged that he had been in at his death. What a farrago of old fables is this! What a dressing up in old clothes, says the critic. I think I see such a one. A Solomon that sits in judgment over us authors and chops up our children. As sure as I am just and wise, modest, learned, and religious, so surely I have read something very like this stuff and nonsense about jackasses and foxes before.
That wolf in sheep's clothing, do I not know him? That fox discoursing with the crow, have I not previously heard of him? Yes, in LaFontaine's Fables. Let us get the dictionary and the fable and the Biographie Universelle, Article LaFontaine, and Confound the Impostor. Then in what a contemptuous way, may Solomon go on to remark, does this author speak of human nature? There is scarce one of these characters he represents but is a villain. The fox is a flatterer. The frog is an emblem of impotence and envy. The wolf in sheep's clothing, a bloodthirsty hypocrite, wearing the garb of innocence. The ass in the lion's skin, a quack, trying to terrify by assuming the appearance of a forest monarch.
Does the rider, writhing under merited castigation, mean to sneer at critics in this character? We laugh at the impertinent comparison. The ox, a stupid commonplace. The only innocent, being in the writer's stolen epilogue, is a fool, the idiotic lamb, who does not know his own mother. And then the critic, if in a virtuous mood, may indulge in some fine writing regarding the holy beautusness of maternal affection. Why not? If authors sneer, it is the critic's business to sneer at them for sneering. He must pretend to be their superior, or who would care about his opinion, and his livelihood is to find fault. Besides, he is right sometimes, and the stories he reads and the characters drawn in them are all sure enough, What stories are new?
All types of all characters march through all fables. Tremblers and boasters, victims and bullies, dupes and knaves, long-eared netties giving themselves leonine airs, tartuffes wearing virtuous clothing, lovers and their trials, their blindness, their folly and constancy. With the very first page of the human story, Do Not Love and Lies to begin. So the tales were told ages before Aesop. The asses under lion's manes roared in Hebrew. The sly foxes flattered in Etruscan. The wolves in sheep's clothing gnashed their teeth in Sanskrit, no doubt. The sun shines today, as he did when he first began shining, and the birds in the tree overhead, while I am riding, sing very much the same note they have sung ever since there were finches.
Nay, since last he besought good-natured friends to listen once a month to his talking, a friend of the writer has seen the new world, and found the featherless birds there exceedingly like their brethren of Europe. There may be nothing new under and including the sun, but it looks fresh every morning, and we rise with it to toil, hope, scheme, laugh, Struggle, love, suffer, until the night comes in quiet. And then we'll wake Morrow and the eyes that look on it, and so da kapu. This then... Is to be a story, may it please you, in which jackdaws wear peacock's feathers, and awaken the just ridicule of the peacocks, in which, while every justice is done to the peacocks themselves, the splendor of their plumage, the gorgeousness of their dazzling necks, and the magnificence of their tails, Exception will be taken to the absurdity of their rickety strut, and the foolish discord of their pert squeaking, in which lions in love will have their claws paired by sly virgins, in which rogues will sometimes triumph, and honest folks, let us hope, come by their own, in which there will be black And I'll read it.
And banquets of stalled oxen, where there is care and hatred, aye, and kindness and friendship, too, along with the feast. It does not follow that all men are honest because they are poor. And I have known some who were friendly and generous, although they had plenty of money. There are some great landlords who do not grind down their tenants. There are actually bishops who are not hypocrites. There are liberal men even among the Whigs, and the radicals themselves are not all aristocrats at heart. But who ever heard of giving the moral before the fable? Children are only led to accept the one after their delectation over the other. Let us take care, lest our readers skip both. And so let us bring them on quickly, our wolves and lambs, our foxes and lions, our roaring donkeys, our billing ring-doves, our motherly partlets, and the crowing Chanticleers.
There was once a time when the sun used to shine brighter than it appears to do in this latter half of the nineteenth century, when the zest of life was certainly keener, when the tavern wines seemed to be delicious and the tavern dinners the perfection of cookery, when the perusal of novels was productive of immense delight, and the monthly advent of Magazine Day was hailed as an exciting holiday. When to know Thompson, who had written a magazine article, was an honor and a privilege, and to see Brown, the author of the last romance, in the flesh, and actually walking in the park with his umbrella and Mrs. Brown, was an event remarkable, and to the end of life to be perfectly well remembered.
When the women of this world were a thousand times more beautiful than those of the present time, and the horries of the theaters especially so ravishing and angelic, that to see them was to set the heart in motion, and to see them again was to struggle for half an hour previously at the door of the pit. When tailors called at a man's lodgings to dazzle him with cards of fancy waistcoats, When it seemed necessary to purchase a grand silver dressing case, so as to be ready for the beard which was not yet born, as yearling brides provide lace caps and work rich clothes for the expected darling. When to ride in the park on a ten-shilling hack seemed to be the height of fashionable enjoyment. And to splash your college tutor as you were driving down Regent Street in a hired cab, the triumph of satire.
When the acme of pleasure seemed to be to meet Jones of Trinity at the Bedford, and to make an arrangement with him and with King of Corpus, who was staying at the Colonnade, and Martin of Trinity Hall, who was with his family in Bloomsbury Square, to dine at the Piazza. Go to the play and see Brahm in Fra Diavolo, and end the frolic evening by partaking of supper and a song at the Cave of Harmony. It was in the days of my own youth, then, when I met one or two of the characters who are a figure in this history, and whom I must leave to accompany for a short while, and until, familiarized with the public, they can make their own way. As I recalled them, the roses bloom again, and the nightingales sing by the calm Bendemir.
Going to the play, then, and to the pit, as was the fashion in those honest days, with some young fellows of my own age, having listened, Delighted to the most cheerful and brilliant of operas, and laughed enthusiastically at the farce, we became naturally hungry at twelve o'clock at nine, and a desire for Welsh rabbits and good old glee singing led us to the Cave of Harmony, then kept by the celebrated Hoskins, among whose friends we were proud to count. We enjoyed such intimacy with Mr. Hoskins that he never failed to greet us with a kind nod, and John the waiter made room for us near the president of the convivial meeting. We knew the three admirable glee singers, and many a time they partook of brandy and water at our expense.
One of us gave his call dinner at Hoskins, and a merry time we had of it. Bird of the night, do you warble your songs by Asheron, or troll your choruses by the banks of black avenues? The Goze of Stout, the Cho and Crow, the Welsh Rabbit, the Red Cross Knight, the Hot Brandy and Water, the Brown, the Strong, the Bloom is on the Rye, the Bloom isn't on the Rye anymore. The song and the cup, in a word, passed round merrily, and, I dare say, the songs and bumpers were encored. It happened that there was a very small attendance at the cave that night, and we were all more sociable and friendly, because the company was select. The songs were chiefly of the sentimental class. Such ditties were much in vogue at the time of which I speak.
There came into the cave a gentleman with a lean brown face and long black mustachios, dressed in very loose clothes, and evidently a stranger to the place. At least, he had not visited it for a long time. He was pointing out changes to a lad who was in his company, and, calling for sherry and water, he listened to the music and twirled his mustachios with great enthusiasm. At the very first glimpse of me, the boy jumped up from the table, bounded across the room, ran to me with his hands out, and blushing, said, Don't you know me? It was Little Newcomb, my schoolfellow, whom I had not seen for six years, grown a fine, tall, young stripling now, with the same bright blue eyes which I remembered when he was quite a little boy.
"'What the deuce brings you here?' said I. He laughed and looked roguish. "'My father—that's my father—would come. He's just back from India. He says all the wits used to come here—Mr. Sheridan, Captain Morris, Colonel Hanger, Professor Porson. I told him your name, and that you used to be very kind to me when I first went to Smithfield.' I've left now. I'm to have a private tutor. I say, I've got such a jolly pony. It's better fun than old smile. Here the whiskered gentleman, Newcomb's father, pointing to a waiter to follow him with his glass of sherry and water, strode across the room, twirling his mustachios, and came up to the table where we sat, making a salutation with his hat in a very stately.
and polite manner, so that Hoskins himself was, as it were, obliged to bow. The glee-singers murmured among themselves, their eyes rolling over their glasses toward one another as they sucked brandy and water. And that mischievous little wag, little Nadam, the improvisator, who had just come in, began to mimic him, feeling his imaginary whiskers after the manner of the stranger and flapping about his pocket-handkerchief in the most ludicrous manner. Hoskins checked this ribaldry by sternly looking towards Nadab, and at the same time... Called upon the gents to give their orders, the waiter being in the room and Mr. Bellew about to sing a song. Newcomb's father came up and held out his hand to me.
I dare say I blushed, for I had been comparing him to the admirable Harley in the Critic, and had christened him Don Ferrolo Wiscarandos. He spoke in a voice exceedingly soft and pleasant, and with a cordiality so simple and sincere that my laughter shrank away ashamed and gave place to a feeling much more respectful and friendly. In youth, you see, one is touched by kindness. A man of the world may, of course, be grateful or not as he chooses. "'I have heard of your kindness, sir,' says he to my boy, "'and whoever is kind to him is kind to me. Will you allow me to sit down by you, and may I beg you to try my cheroots?' We were friends in a minute, young Newcomb snuggling by my side, his father opposite, to whom, after a minute or two of conversation, I presented my three college friends.
"'You have come here, gentlemen, to see the wits,' said the Colonel. "'Are there any celebrated persons in the room? I have been five and thirty years from home, and want to see all that is to be seen.'" King of Corpus, who is an incorrigible wag, was on the point of pulling some dreadful longbow and pointing out a half-dozen of people in the room as R and H and L, etc., the most celebrated wits of that day, but I cut King's shins under the table and got the fellow to hold his tongue. Maxima Dubitur-Purie, says Jones, a fellow of very kind feeling who has gone into the church since, and writing on his card to Hoskins, hinted to him that a boy was in the room, and a gentleman who was quite a greenhorn, hence that the songs had better be carefully selected.
And so they were. A ladies' school might have come in, and but for the smell of the cigars and brandy and water, have taken no harm by what happened. Why should it not always be so? If there are any Caves of Harmony now, I warrant Mischus the landlords their interests would be better consulted by keeping their singers within bounds. The very greatest scamps like pretty songs and are melted by them, so are honest people. It was worth a guinea to see the simple carnal and his delight at the music. He forgot all about the distinguished wits whom he had expected to see in his ravishment over the glees. I say, Clive, this is delightful. This is better than your aunt's concert with all the squalinis, eh?
I shall come here often. Landlord, may I venture to ask those gentlemen if they will take any refreshment? What are their names? to one of his neighbors. I was scarcely allowed to hear any singing before I went out except an oratorio where I fell asleep. But this, by George, is as fine as Oncletant. He became quite excited over his sherry on water. I'm sorry to see you gentlemen drinking brandy Pawnee, says he. It plays the deuce with our young men in India. He joined in all the choruses with an exceedingly sweet voice. He laughed at the Derby Ram, so that it did you good to hear him, and when Hoskins sang, as he did admirably, The old English gentleman, and described in measured cadence the death of that venerable aristocrat, tears trickled down the honest warrior's cheek while he held out his hand to Hoskins and said, Thank you, sir, for that song.
It is an honor to human nature, on which Hoskins began to cry, too. And now young Nadab, having been cautioned, Commence one of those surprising feats of improvisation with which he used to charm audiences. He took us all off, and had rhymes pat about all the principal persons in the room, King's pins, which he wore very splendid, Martin's red waistcoat, etc. The colonel was charmed with each feat, and joined delighted with the chorus. Ritolderal, ritolderal, ritolderal de re, bis. And when, coming to the colonel himself, he burst out. A military gent I see, and while his face I scan, I think you'll all agree with me, he came from Hindustan. And by his side sits, laughing free, a youth with curly head.
I think you'll all agree with me, that he was best in bed. Retolderall, etc. The Colonel laughed immensely at this Sally, and clapped his son, young Clive, on the shoulder. Hear what he says of you, sir. Clive, best be off to bed, my boy. Ho, ho! No, no, we know a trick worth two of that. We won't go home till morning, till daylight does appear. Why should we? Why shouldn't my boy have innocent pleasure? I was allowed none when I was a young chap, and the severity was nearly the ruin of me. I must go and speak with that young man, the most astonishing thing I ever heard in my life. What's his name? Mr. Nadab. Mr. Nadab, sir, you have delighted me. May I make so free as to ask you to come and dine with me tomorrow at six?
Colonel Newcomb, if you please. Newrout's Hotel, Clifford Street. I am always proud to make the acquaintance of men of genius, and you are one, or my name is not Newcomb. Sir, you do me honor, says Mr. Nadal, pulling up his shirt collar, and perhaps the day will come when the world will do me justice. May I put down your honored name for my book of poems? Of course, my dear sir, says the enthusiastic Colonel. I'll send them all over India. Put me down for six copies, and do me the favor to bring them tomorrow when you come to dinner." And now, Mr. Hoskins, asking if any gentleman would volunteer a song, what was our amazement when the simple colonel offered to sing himself, at which the room applauded vociferously.
Whilst, methought, poor Clive Newcomb hung down his head and blushed as red as a peony. I felt for the young lad, and thought what my own sensations would have been if, in that place, my own uncle, Major Pendennis, had suddenly proposed to exert his lyrical powers. The colonel selected the ditty of Whopping Old Stairs, a ballad so sweet and touching that surely any English poet might be proud to be the father of it. And he sang this quaint and charming old song in an exceedingly pleasant voice, with flourishes and roulades in the old oncladon manor, which was pretty nearly passed away. The singer gave his heart and soul to the simple ballad, And delivered Molly's gentle appeal so pathetically that even the professional gentlemen hummed and buzzed, a sincere applause, and some wags who were inclined to jeer at the beginning of the performance clinked their glasses and wrapped their sticks with quite a respectful enthusiasm.
When the song was over, Clive held up his head, too, after the shock of the first verse, looked round with surprise and pleasure in his eyes, and we, I need not say, backed our friend, delighted to see him come out of his queer scrape so triumphantly. The Colonel bowed and smiled with very pleasant good-nature at our plaudits. It was like Dr. Primrose. Preaching his sermon in the prison, there was something touching in the naivete and kindness of the placid and simple gentleman. Great Hoskins, placed on high amidst the tuneful choir, was pleased to signify his approbation, and gave his guests Health in his usual dignified manner. I am much obliged to you, sir, says Mr. Hoskins. The room ought to be much obliged to you.
I drink your health and songs, sir. And he bowed to the Colonel politely over his glass of brandy and water, of which he absorbed a little in his customer's honor. I have not heard that song, he was kind enough to say, better performed since Mr. Uncledong sang it. He was a great singer, sir, and, I may say, in the words of our immortal Shakespeare, that, take him, for all in all we shall not look upon his like again. The colonel blushed in his turn, and, turning round to his boy with an arched smile, said, I learned it from Uncle Don. I used to slip out from Greyfriars to hear him, heaven bless me, forty years ago, and I used to be flogged afterward, and served me right, too. Lord, Lord, how the time passes.
He drank off his sherry and water and fell back in his chair. We could see he was thinking about his youth, the golden time, the happy, the bright, the unforgotten. I was myself nearly two and twenty years of age at that period, and felt as old, ay, older than the Colonel. Whilst he was singing his ballad, there had walked, or rather reeled, into the room a gentleman in a military frock-coat and duck trousers of dubious hue, with whose name and person some of my readers are perhaps already acquainted. In fact, it was my friend Captain Costigan, in his usual condition at this hour of the night. Holding on by various tables, the captain had sidled up, without accident to himself or any of the jugs and glasses round about him, to the table where we sat, and had taken his place near the rider, his old acquaintance.
He warbled the refrain of the colonel's song, Not inharmoniously, and saluted its pathetic conclusion with a subdued hiccup and a plentiful effusion of tears. "'Bedad! It is a beautiful song,' says he, "'and many a time I heard poor hairy Uncle Donne sing it. "'He's a great character,' whispered that unlucky King of Corpus to his neighbor the Colonel. "'Was a captain in the army. We call him the General, Captain Costigan.' Will you take something to drink? Bedad I will, says the captain, and I'll sing you a song, too. And having procured a glass of whiskey and water from the passing waiter, the poor old man, settling his face into a horrid grin and leering, as he was wont when he gave what he called one of his prime songs, began his music.
The unlucky wretch, who scarcely knew what he was doing or saying, selected one of the most outrageous performances of his repertoire, fired off a tipsy howl by way of overture, and away he went. At the end of the second verse, the colonel started up, clapping on his hat, seizing his stick, and looking as ferocious as though he had been going to do battle with a pinderee. Silence, he roared out. "'Hear, hear!' cried certain wags at a farther table. "'Go on, Costigan,' said others. "'Go on!' cries the colonel, in his high voice trembling with anger. "'Does any gentleman say go on? "'Does any man who has a wife and sisters or children at home say go on "'to such disgusting ribaldry as this? "'Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a gentleman "'and to say that you hold the king's commission?' And to sit down amongst Christians and men of honor and defile the ears of young boys with this wicked balderdash?
Why do you bring young boys in here, old boy? cries a voice of the malcontents. Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of gentlemen, cried out the indignant colonel, because I never could have believed that Englishmen could meet together and allow a man and an old man so to disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch! Go home to your bed, you hoary old sinner! And for my part, I'm not sorry that my son should see, for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonor, drunkenness and whiskey may bring a man. Never mind the change, sir! Curse the change, says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter. Keep it till you see me in this place again, which will be never by George, never!
And shouldering his stick, and scowling round at the company of scared bacchanalians, the indignant gentleman stalked away his boy after him. Clive seemed rather shamefaced, but I fear the rest of the company looked still more foolish. And Jones gave a shrug of his shoulders, which were smarting, perhaps, for that uplifted cane of the colonel's had somehow fallen on the back of every man in the room.
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2 02 - Chapter 2: Colonel Newcome's Wild Oats 42:10
Love of Pleasant Hill, California. The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter Two, Colonel Newcomb's Wild Oats.
As the young gentleman who has just gone to bed is to be the hero of the following pages, we had best begin our account of him with his family history, which, luckily, is not very long. When pigtails still grew on the backs of the British gentry, and their wives wore cushions on their heads, over which they tied their own hair and disguised it with powder and pomade, When ministers went in their stars and orders to the House of Commons, and the orators of the opposition attacked nightly the noble lord in the blue ribbon, When Mr. Washington was heading the American Rebels with a courage, it must be confessed, worthy of a better cause, there came up to London, out of a northern county, Mr. Thomas Newcomb, afterwards Thomas Newcomb Esquire, and Sheriff of London, afterwards Mr.
Alderman Newcomb, the founder of the family whose name has given the title to this history. It was but in the reign of George III that Mr. Newcomb first made his appearance in Cheapside, having made his entry into London on a wagon, which landed him, and some bales of cloth, all his fortune, in Bishopsgate Street, though if it could be proved that the Normans wore pigtails under William the Conqueror, and Mr. Washington fought against the English under King Richard in Palestine, I am sure some of the present Newcombs would pay the Herald's office handsomely, living, as they do, amongst the noblest of the land, and giving entertainments to none but the very highest nobility and elite of the fashionable and diplomatic world, as you may read any day in the newspapers.
For though these Newcombs have got a pedigree from the college, which is printed in Budges Landed, Aristocracy of Great Britain, and which proves that the Newcombe of Cromwell's army, the Newcombe who was among the last six who were hanged by Queen Mary for Protestantism, were ancestors of this house, of which a member Distinguished himself at Bosworth Field, and the founder, slain by King Harold's side at Hastings, had been surgeon barber to King Edward the Confessor. Yet, between ourselves, I think that Sir Brian Newcomb of Newcomb does not believe a word of the story any more than the rest of the world does, although a number of his children bear names out of the Saxon calendar. Was Thomas Newcomb a foundling, a workhouse child out of that village which has now become a great manufacturing town and which bears his name?
Such was the report set about at the last election when Sir Bryan, in the conservative interest, contested the borough. And Mr. Yap, the out-and-out liberal candidate, had a picture of the old workhouse placarded over the town as the birthplace of the Newcombs, with placards, ironically, exciting freemen to vote for Newcomb and Union, Newcomb and the parish interests, etc. Who cares for these local scandals? It matters very little to those who have the good fortune to be invited to Lady Anne Newcomb's parties, whether her beautiful daughters can trace their pedigrees no higher than to the aldermen their grandfather, or whether, through the mystic ancestral barber-surgeon, they hang on to the chin of Edward, confessor and king.
Thomas Newcomb, who had been a weaver in his native village, brought the very best character for honesty, thrift, and ingenuity with him to London, where he was taken into the house of Hobson brothers Clough Factors, afterwards Hobson and Newcomb. This fact may suffice to indicate Thomas Newcomb's story. Like Whittington and many other London apprentices, he began poor and ended by marrying his master's daughter and becoming sheriff and alderman of the City of London. But it was only in Sikhan's gnosis that he espoused The wealthy and religious, and eminent, such was the word applied to certain professing Christians in those days, Sophia Althea Hobson, a woman who, considerably older than Mr.
Newcomb, had the advantage of surviving him many years. Her mansion at Clapham was long the resort of the most favored amongst the religious world. The most eloquent expounders, the most gifted missionaries, The most interesting converts from foreign islands were to be found at her sumptuous table, spread with the produce of her magnificent gardens. Heaven indeed blessed those gardens with plenty, as many reverend gentlemen remarked. There were no finer grapes Peaches, or pineapples in all England. Mr. Whitfield himself christened her, and it was said generally in the city and by her friends that Miss Hobson's two Christian names, Sophia and Althea, were two Greek words, which, being interpreted, meant wisdom and truth.
She, her villa, and gardens are now no more but Sophia Terrace, Upper and Lower Althea Road, and Hobson's buildings, Square, etc., show every quarter-day that the ground sacred to her and freehold still bears plenteous fruit for the descendants of this eminent woman. We are, however, advancing matters. When Thomas Newcomb had been some time in London, He quitted the house of Hobson, finding an opening, though in a much smaller way, for himself. And no sooner did his business prosper than he went down into the north, like a man, to a pretty girl whom he had left there, and whom he had promised to marry. What seemed an imprudent match, for his wife had nothing but a pale face, that had grown older and paler with long waiting, turned out a very lucky one for Newcomb.
The whole countryside was pleased to think of the prosperous London tradesman returning to keep his promise to the penniless girl whom he had loved in the days of his own poverty. The great country clothiers, who knew his prudence and honesty, gave him much of their business when he went back to London. Susan Newcomb would have lived to be a rich woman had not fate ended her career within a year after her marriage, when she died giving birth to a son. Newcomb had a nurse for the child, and a cottage at Clapham, hard by Mr. Hobson's house, where he had often walked in the garden of a Sunday, and been invited to sit down to take a glass of wine. Since he had left their service, the house had added a banking business, which was greatly helped by the Quakers and their religious connection.
And Newcomb, keeping his account there and gradually increasing his business, was held in very good esteem by his former employers and invited sometimes to tea at the Hermitage, for which entertainments he did not, in truth, much care at first. Being a city man, a good deal tired with his business during the day, and apt To go to sleep over the sermons, expoundings, and hymns with which the gifted preachers, missionaries, etc., who were always at the hermitage, used to wind up the evening before supper. Nor was he a supping man, in which case he would have found the parties pleasanter, for in Egypt itself there were not more savory flesh pots than at Clapham. He was very moderate in his meals, of a bilious temperament, and, besides, obligated to be in town early in the morning, always setting off to walk an hour before the first coach.
But when his poor Susan died, Miss Hobson, by her father's demise having now become a partner in the house, as well as heiress to the pious and childless Zachariah Hobson, Her uncle, Mr. Newcomb, with his little boy in his hand, met Miss Hobson as she was coming out of meeting one Sunday, and the child looked so pretty. Mr. N. was a very personable, flesh-colored man himself. He wore powder to the end and top boots and brass buttons in his later days, after he had been sheriff, indeed, one of the finest specimens of the old London merchant. Miss Hobson, I say, invited him and little Tommy into the grounds of the Hermitage, did not quarrel with the innocent child for frisking about in the hay on the lawn, which lay basking in the Sabbath sunshine, and at the end of the visit gave him a large piece of pound-cake, a quantity of the finest hothouse grapes, and a tract in one syllable.
Tommy was ill the next day, but on the next Sunday his father was at meeting. He became very soon after this an awakened man, and the tiddling and taddling and the sneering and gossiping all over Clapham, and the talk on change and the pokes in the waistcoat administered by the wags to Newcomb. Newcomb, give you joy, my boy. Newcomb, new partner in Hobson's. Newcomb. Just take in this paper to Hobson's. They'll do it, I warrant, etc., etc. And the groans of the Reverend Gideon Balls, of the Reverend Athanasius O'Grady, that eminent convert from Popery, who, quarreling with each other, yea, striving one against another, had yet two sentiments in common, their love for Miss Hobson, their dread, Their hatred of the worldly Newcomb.
All these squabbles and jokes and pribbles and prabbles, look you, may be omitted. As gallantly as he had married a woman without a penny, as gallantly as he had conquered his poverty and achieved his own independence, so bravely he went in and won the great city prize with a fortune of a quarter of a million. And every one of his old friends and every honest-hearted fellow who likes to see shrewdness and honesty and courage succeed was glad of his good fortune and said, Newcomb, my boy, or Newcomb, my buck, if they were old city cronies and very familiar. I give you joy. Of course, Mr. Newcomb might have gone into Parliament. Of course, before the close of his life, He might have been made a baronet, but he eschewed honors, senatorial or blood-red hands.
It wouldn't do with his good sense, he said. The Quaker connection wouldn't like it. His wife never cared about being called Lady Newcomb. To manage the great house of Hobson brothers and Newcomb, to attend to the interests of the enslaved Negro, to awaken the benighted Hottentot to a sense of the truth, to convert Jews, Turks, infidels, and Papists, to arouse the indifferent and often blasphemous Mariner, to guide the washerwoman in the right way, to head all the public charities of her sect, and do a thousand secret kindnesses that none knew of, to answer myriads of letters, pension endless ministers, and supply their teeming wives with continuous baby linen. To hear preachers daily bawling for hours and listen untired on her knees after a long day's labor while florid rhapsodists belabored cushions above her with wearisome benedictions.
All these things had this woman to do, and for near fourscore years she fought her fight womanfully, imperious but deserving to rule, hard but doing her duty, severe but charitable, and untiring in generosity as in labor, unforgiving in one instance, in that of her husband's eldest son, Thomas Newcomb, the little boy who had played on the hay and whom At first, she had loved very sternly and fondly. Mr. Thomas Newcomb, the father of his wife's twin boys, the junior partner of the House of Hobson Brothers and Company, lived several years after winning the great prize about which all his friends so congratulated him. But he was, after all, only the junior partner of the house. His wife was manager in Threadneedle Street and at home.
When the clerical gentlemen prayed, they importuned heaven for that sainted woman a long time before they thought of asking any favor for her husband. The gardeners touched their hats. The clerks at the bank brought him the books, but they took their orders from her, not from him. I think he grew weary of the prayer meetings. He yawned over the sufferings of the Negroes and wished the converted Jews at Jericho. About the time the French Emperor was meeting with his Russian reverses, Mr. Newcomb died. His mausoleum is in Clapham Churchyard, near the modest grave where his first wife reposes. When his father married, Mr. Thomas Newcomb, Jr., and Sarah, his nurse, The people of the village were transported from the cottage, where they had lived in great comfort, to the palace hard by, surrounded by lawns and gardens, pineries, graperies, aviaries, luxuries of all kinds.
This paradise, five miles from the standard at Corn Hill, was separated from the outer world by a thick hedge of tall trees and an ivy-covered porter's gate, through which They who traveled to London on top of the Clapham coach could only get a glimpse of the bliss within. It was a serious paradise. As you entered the gate, gravity fell on you. The decorum wrapped you in a garment of starch. The butcher boy who galloped his horse and cart madly about the adjoining lanes and common, whistled wild melodies. Caught up in abominable playhouse galleries, and joked with a hundred cookmaids on passing that lodge, fell into an undertaker's pace, and delivered his joints and sweetbreads silently at the servants' entrance.
The rooks in the elms cawed sermons at morning and evening. The peacocks walked demurely on the terraces. The guinea fowls looked more Quaker-like than those savory birds usually do. The lodgekeeper was serious, and a clerk at a neighboring chapel. The pastors who entered at the gate and greeted his comely wife and children fed the little lambkins with tracts. The head gardener was a Scotch-Calvinist, after the strictest order, only occupying himself with the melons and pines provisionally, and until the end of the world, which event he could prove by infallible calculations was to come off in two or three years at farthest. Wherefore, he asked, should the butler brew strong ale to be drunken three years hence, or the housekeeper A follower of Joanna Southcote, make provisions of fine linen and lay up stores of jams.
On a Sunday, which good old Saxon word was scarcely known at the Hermitage, the household marched away in separate couples or groups to at least half a dozen of religious edifices, each to sit under his or her favorite minister. The only man who went to church being Thomas Newcomb. Accompanied by Tommy, his little son, and Sarah, his nurse, who was, I believe, also his aunt, or at least his mother's first cousin. Tommy was taught hymns very soon after he could speak, appropriate to his tender age, pointing out to him the inevitable fate of wicked children and giving him the earliest possible warning and description of the punishment of little sinners. He repeated these poems to his stepmother after dinner, before the great shining mahogany table, covered with grapes, pineapples, plum cake, port wine, and Madeira, and surrounded by stout men in black with baggy white neck cloths, who took the little man between their knees and questioned him as to his right understanding of the place where their naughty boys were bound.
They patted his head with their fat hands if he said well, or rebuked him if he was bold, as he often was. Nurse Sarah or Aunt Sarah would have died had she remained many years in that stifling Garden of Eden. She could not bear to part from the child whom her mistress and kinswoman had confided to her. The women had worked in the same room at Newcombs and loved each other always. When Susan became a merchant's lady, and Sarah, her servant. She was nobody in the pompous new household but Master Tommy's nurse. The honest soul never mentioned her relationship to the boy's mother, nor, indeed, did Mr. Newcomb acquaint his new family with that circumstance. The housekeeper called her an erastion.
Mrs. Newcomb's own serious maid informed against her for telling Tommy's stories of Lancashire witches and believing in the same. The black footman, Madam's maid, and the butler were, of course, privately united, persecuted her with his addresses, and was even encouraged by his mistress, who thought of sending him as a missionary to the Niger. No little love and fidelity and constancy did honest Sarah show and use during the years she passed at the Hermitage, and until Tommy went to school. Her master, with many private prayers and entreaties, in which he passionately recalled his former wife's memory and affection, implored his friend to stay with him. And Tommy's fondness for her, and artless caresses, and the scrapes he got into, and the howls he uttered over the hymns and catechisms which he was bidden to learn by Reverend T.
Clack of Highbury College, his daily tutor, who was commissioned to spare not the rod, neither to spoil the child. All these causes induced Sarah to remain with her young master until such time as he was sent to school. Meanwhile, an event of prodigious importance, a wonderment, a blessing and a delight, had happened at the Hermitage. About two years after Mrs. Newcomb's marriage, the lady being then forty-three years of age, no less than two little cherubs appeared in the Clapham Paradise. The twins, Hobson Newcomb and Brian Newcomb, called after their uncle and late grandfather, whose name and rank they were destined to perpetuate. And now there was no reason why young Newcomb should not go to school.
Old Mr. Hobson and his brother had been educated at that school of Greyfriars, of which mention has been made in former works, and to Greyfriars Thomas Newcomb was accordingly sent, exchanging, O ye gods, with what delight, the splendor of Clapham for the rough, plentiful fare of the place. Blacking his master's shoes with perfect readiness till he rose in the school, and the time came when he should have a fag of his own, tibbing out and receiving the penalty, therefore, bartering a black eye, per bearer, against a bloody nose drawn at sight with a schoolfellow, and shaking hands the next day, playing at cricket, hockey, prisoner's base, and football, according to the season. And gorging himself and friends with tarts when he had money, and of this he had plenty to spend.
I have seen his name carved upon the gown boy's arch, but he was at school long before my time. His son showed me the name when we were boys together in some year when George IV was king. The pleasures of this school life were such to Tommy Newcomb that he did not care to go home for a holiday, and indeed, by insubordination and boisterousness, by playing tricks and breaking windows, by marauding upon the gardener's peaches and the housekeeper's jam, by upsetting his two little brothers in a go-cart, of which, wanton and careless injury, the present baronet's nose bears marks to this very day. By going to sleep during the sermons, and treating Reverend Gentlemen with levity, he drew down on himself the merited wrath of his stepmother, and many punishments in this present life, besides those of a future and much more durable kind, which the good lady did not fail to point out that he must undoubtedly inherit.
His father, at Mrs. Newcomb's instigation, certainly whipped Tommy for upsetting his little brothers in the go-kart. But upon being pressed to repeat the whipping for some other peccadillo performed soon after, Mr. Newcomb refused at once, using a wicked, worldly expression which well might shock any serious lady, saying, in fact, that he would be deed if he beat the boy any more, and that he got flogging enough at school, in which opinion Master Tommy fully coincided. The undaunted woman, his stepmother, was not to be made to forego her plans for the boy's reform by any such vulgar ribaltries. And Mr. Newcomb, being absent in the city on his business, and Tommy, refractory as usual, she summoned the serious butler and the black footman, for the lashings of whose brethren she felt an unaffected pity, to operate together in the chastisement of this young criminal.
But he dashed so furiously against the butler's shins as to draw blood from his comely limbs, and to cause that serious and overfed menial to limp and suffer for many days after. And, seizing the decanter, he swore he would demolish Blackie's ugly face with it. Nay, he threatened to discharge it at Mrs. Newcomb's own head. Before he would submit to the coercion which she desired her agents to administer. High words took place between Mr. and Mrs. Newcomb that night on the gentleman's return home from the city, and on his learning the events of the morning. It is to be feared he made use of further oaths, which hasty ejaculations need not be set down in this place. At any rate, he behaved with spirit and manliness as master of the house, vowed that if any servant laid a hand on the child, he would thrash him first, and then discharge him.
And I dare say expressed himself with bitterness and regret that he had married a wife who would not be obedient to her husband, and had entered a house of which he was not suffered to be the master. Friends were called in, the interference, the supplications of the Clapham clergy, some of whom dined constantly at the hermitage, Prevailed to outlay this domestic quarrel, and no doubt the good sense of Mrs. Newcomb, who, though imperious, was yet not unkind, and who, excellent as she was, yet could be brought to own that she was sometimes in fault, induced her to make at least a temporary submission to the man whom she had placed at the head of her house, and whom, it must be confessed, she had vowed to love and honor.
When Tommy fell ill of the scarlet fever, which afflicting event occurred presently after the above dispute, his own nurse, Sarah, could not have been more tender, watchful, and affectionate than his stepmother showed herself to be. She nursed him through his illness, allowed his food and medicine to be administered by no other hand, sat up with the boy through a night of his fever, and uttered not a single reproach to her husband, who watched with her when the twins took the disease, from which we need not say they happily recovered. And though Young Tommy, in his temporary delirium, mistaking her for Nurse Sarah, addressed her as his dear fat Sally, whereas no whipping post to which she ever would have tied him could have been leaner than Mrs.
Newcomb, and under his feverish delusion actually abused her to her face, calling her an old cat, an old Methodist, and jumping up in his little bed, forgetful of his previous fancy. Vowing that he would put on his clothes and run away to Sally. Sally was at her northern home by this time, with a liberal pension which Mr. Newcomb gave her, and which his son and his son's son after him, through all their difficulties and distresses, always found means to pay. What the boy threatened in his delirium, he had thought of, no doubt. More than once in his solitary and unhappy holidays, a year after he actually ran away, not from school, but from home, and appeared one morning, gaunt and hungry, at Sarah's cottage 200 miles away from Clapham, who housed the poor prodigal, and killed her calf for him, washed him with many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to sleep.
From which slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his father, whose sure instinct, backed by Mrs. Newcomb's own quick intelligence, had made him at once aware whether the young runaway had fled. The poor father came horsewhip in hand. He knew of no other law or means to maintain his authority. Many and many a time had his own father, the old weaver, whose memory he loved and honored, strapped and beaten him. Seeing this instrument in the parent's hand, as Mr. Newcomb thrust out the weeping, trembling Sarah and closed the door upon her, Tommy, scared out of a sweet sleep and a delightful dream of cricket, knew his fate, and getting up out of bed, received his punishment without a word. Very likely, the father suffered more than the child, for when the punishment was over, the little man, yet trembling and quivering with the pain, held out his little bleeding hand and said, I can, I can take it from you, sir, saying which his face flushed and his eyes filled for the first time, whereupon the father burst into a passion of tears.
and embraced the boy and kissed him, besought and prayed him to be rebellious no more, flung the whip away from him and swore, come what would, he would never strike him again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy reconciliation. The three dined together in Sarah's cottage. Perhaps the father would have liked to walk that evening in the lanes and fields where he had wandered as a young fellow. Where he had first courted and first kissed the young girl he loved, poor child, who had waited for him so faithfully and fondly, who had passed so many a day of patient want and meek expectance, to be repaid by such a scant holiday and brief fruition. Mrs. Newcomb never made the slightest allusion to Tom's absence after his return, but was quite gentle and affectionate with him, and that night read the parable of the Prodigal in a very low and quiet voice.
This, however, was only a temporary truce. War very soon broke out again between the impetuous lad and his rigid, domineering mother-in-law. It was not that he was very bad, or she perhaps more stern than other ladies, but the two could not agree. The boy sulked and was miserable at home. He fell to drinking with the grooms in the stables. I think he went to Epsom races and was discovered after that act of rebellion. Driving from a most interesting breakfast at Roehampton, where a delightful Hebrew convert had spoken, oh so graciously. Mrs. Newcomb, in her state carriage with her bay horses, met Tom, her son-in-law, in a tax cart, excited by drink, and accompanied by all sorts of friends, male and female.
John, the black man, was bidden to descend from the carriage and bring him to Mrs. Newcomb. He came. His voice was thick with drink. He laughed wildly. He described a fight at which he had been present. It was not possible that such a castaway as this should continue in a house where her two little cherubs were growing up in innocence and grace. The boy had a great fancy for India, and Orme's history, containing the exploits of Clive and Lawrence, was his favorite book of all in his father's library. Being offered a ridership, he scouted the idea of a civil appointment and would be contended with nothing but a uniform. A cavalry cadetship was procured for Thomas Newcomb, and the young man's future career being thus determined and his stepmother's unwilling consent procured, Mr.
Newcomb thought fit to send his son to a tutor for military instruction and removed him from the London School. where, in truth, he had made but very little progress in the humaner letters. The lad was placed with a professor who prepared young men for the army and received rather a better professional education than fell to the lot of most young soldiers of his day. He cultivated the mathematics and fortification with more assiduity than he had ever bestowed on Greek and Latin. And especially made such a progress in the French tongue as was very uncommon among the British youth, his contemporaries. In the study of this agreeable language, over which young Newcomb spent a great deal of his time, he unluckily had some instructors who were destined to bring the poor lad into yet further trouble at home.
His tutor, an easy gentleman, lived at Blackheath, and not far from thence, on the road to Woolwich, dwelt the little Chevalier de Blois, at whose house the young man much preferred to take his French lessons, rather than to receive them under his tutor's own roof. For the fact was that the little Chevalier de Blois had two pretty young daughters. With whom he had fled from his country along with thousands of French gentlemen at the period of revolution and emigration. He was a cadet of a very ancient family, and his brother, the Marquis de Blois, was a fugitive like himself, but with the army of the princess on the Rhine, or with his exiled sovereign at Mittau. The Chevalier had seen the wars of the great Frederick.
What man could be found better to teach young Newcomb the French language and the art military? It was surprising with what assiduity he pursued his studies. Mademoiselle Lenore, the Chevalier's daughter, would carry on her little industry very undisturbedly in the same parlor with her father and his pupil. She painted card racks, labored at embroidery, and was ready to employ her quick little brain or fingers in any way by which she could find means to add a few shillings to the scanty store on which this exiled family supported themselves in their day of misfortune. I suppose the Chevalier was not in the least unquiet about her, because she was promised in marriage to the Comte de Florac. Also of the emigration, a distinguished officer like the Chevalier, than whom he was a year older, and, at the time of which we speak, engaged in London in giving private lessons on the fiddle.
Sometimes on a Sunday he would walk to Blackheath with that instrument in his hand, and pay his court to his young fiancé, and talk over happier days with his old companion in arms. Tom Newcomb took no French lessons on a Sunday. He passed that day at Clapham, generally, where, strange to say, he never said a word about Mademoiselle Dublois. What happens when two young folks of eighteen, handsome and ardent, generous and impetuous, alone in the world, or without strong affections to buying them elsewhere, what happens when they meet daily over French dictionaries, embroidery frames, or indeed upon any business whatever? No doubt, Mademoiselle Lenore was a young lady perfectly bien-elevée, and ready, as every well-elevated young Frenchwoman should be, to accept a husband of her parents' choosing.
But while the elderly Monsieur de Florac was fiddling in London, there was that handsome young Tom Newcomb ever present at Blackheath. To make a long matter short, Tom declared his passion, and was for marrying Lenore offhand, if she would but come with him to the little Catholic chapel at Woolwich. Why should they not go out to India together and be happy ever after? The innocent little Amour may have been several months in transaction, and was discovered by Mrs. Newcomb, whose keen spectacles nothing could escape. It chanced that she drove to Blackheath to Tom's tutors. Tom was absent, taking his French and drawing lesson of Monsieur Dublois. Thither, Tom's stepmother followed him and found the young man sure enough with his instructor over his books and plans of fortification.
Mademoiselle and her card screens were in the room, but behind those screens she could not hide her blushes and confusion from Mrs. Newcomb's sharp glances. In one moment the banker's wife saw the whole affair, the whole mystery which had been passing for months under poor Monsieur de Blois' nose, without his having the least notion of the truth. Mrs. Newcomb said she wanted her son to return home with her upon private affairs, and before they had reached the hermitage, a fine battle had ensued between them. His mother had charged him with being a wretch and a monster, and he had replied fiercely, denying the accusation with scorn and announcing his wish instantly to marry the most virtuous, the most beautiful of her sex.
To marry a papist. This is all that was wanted to make poor Tom's cup of bitterness run over. Mr. Newcomb was called in, and the two elders passed a great part of the night in an assault upon the lad. He was grown too tall for the cane, but Mrs. Newcomb thronged him with the lash of her indignation for many an hour that evening. He was forbidden to enter Monsieur de Blois' house, a prohibition at which the spirited young fellow snapped his fingers and laughed in scorn. Nothing, he swore, but his death should part him from the young lady. On the next day, his father came to him alone and plied him with entreaties, but he was as obdurate as before. He would have her. Nothing should prevent him.
He cocked his hat and walked out of the lodge gate, as his father, quite beaten by the young man's obstinacy, with haggard face and tearful eyes, went his own way into town. He was not very angry himself. In the course of their talk overnight, the boy had spoken bravely and honestly, and Newcomb could remember how in his own early life. He, too, had courted and loved a young lass. It was Mrs. Newcomb the father was afraid of. Who shall depict her wrath at the idea that a child of her house was about to marry a popish girl? So young Newcomb went his way to Blackheath, bent upon falling straightway down upon his knees before Lenore and having the Chevalier's blessing. That old fiddler in London scarcely seemed to him to be an obstacle.
It seemed monstrous that a young creature should be given away to a man older than her own father. He did not know the law of honor as it obtained amongst French gentlemen of those days, or how religiously their daughters were bound by it. But Mrs. Newcomb had been beforehand with him, and had visited the Chevalier du Blois, almost at Cockro. She charged him insolently with being privy to the attachment between the young people, pursued him with vulgar rebukes about beggary, potpourri, and French adventurers. Her husband had to make a very contrite apology afterwards for the language which his wife had thought fit to employ. "'You forbid me,' said the Chevalier. "'You forbid Mademoiselle Dubois to marry your son, Mr.
Thomas?' "'No, madame. She comes of a race which is not accustomed to ally itself with persons of your class, and is promised to a gentleman whose ancestors were dukes and peers when Mr. Newcombs wore blacking shoes.' Instead of finding his pretty blushing girl on arriving at Woolridge, Poor Tom only found his French master, livid with rage and quivering under his aile de pigeon. We pass over the scenes that followed, the young man's passionate entreaties and fury and despair. In his own defense, and to prove his honor to the world, Monsieur Dublois determined that his daughter should instantly marry the Count. The poor girl yielded without a word, as became her, and it was with this marriage effected, almost before his eyes, and frantic with wrath and despair, that young Newcomb embarked for India and quitted the parents whom he was never more to see.
Tom's name was no more mentioned at Clapham. His letters to his father were written to the city, very pleasant they were and comforting to the father's heart. He sent Tom liberal private remittances to India until the boy wrote to say that he wanted no more. Mr. Newcomb would have liked to leave Tom all his private fortune, for the twins were only too well cared for, but he dared not on account of his terror of Sophia Althea, his wife, and he died and poor Tom was only secretly forgiven.
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3 03 - Chapter 3: Colonel Newcome's Letter-box 24:48
Colonel Newcomb's Letterboxd. One. With the most heartfelt joy, my dear Major, I take up my pen to announce to you the happy arrival of the Ramchunder, and the dearest and handsomest little boy who I am sure ever came from India. Little Clive is in perfect health. He speaks English wonderfully well. He cried when he parted from Mr. Sneed, the supercargo, who most kindly brought him from Southampton in a post-chaise. But these tears in childhood are of very brief duration. The voyage, Mr. Stead states, was most favorable, occupying only four months and eleven days. How different from that more lengthened and dangerous passage of eight months, and almost perpetual sea-sickness, in which my poor dear sister Emma went to Bengal to become the wife of the best of husbands and the mother of the dearest of little boys, and to enjoy these inestimable blessings for so brief an interval.
She has quitted this wicked and wretched world for one where all is peace, the misery and ill-treatment which she endured from Captain Case, her first odious husband, were, I am sure, amply repaid, my dear Colonel, by your subsequent affection. If the most sumptuous dresses which London, even Paris, could supply, jewellery, the most costly, and elegant lace, and everything lovely and fashionable could content a woman, These, I am sure, during the last four years of her life, the poor girl had. Of what avail are they when this scene of vanity is closed? Mr. Sneed announces that the passage was most favorable. They stayed a week at the Cape, and three days at St. Helena, where they visited Bonaparte's tomb, another instance of the vanity of all things, And their voyage was enlivened of ascension by the taking of some delicious turtle.
You may be sure that the most liberal sum which you have placed to my credit with the messieurs Hobson & Co. shall be faithfully expended on my dear little charge. Mrs. Newcomb can scarcely be called his grandmama, I suppose, And I dare say her methodistical ladyship will not care to see the daughter and grandson of a clergyman of the Church of England. My brother Charles took leave to wait upon her when he presented your last most generous bill at the bank. She received him most rudely, and said a fool and his money are soon parted. And when Charles said, Madam, I am the brother of the late Mrs. Major Newcombe, Sir, says she, I judge nobody, but from all accounts you are the brother of a very vain, idle, thoughtless, extravagant woman, and Thomas Newcombe was as foolish about his wife as about his money.
Of course, unless Mrs. N. writes to invite dear Clive, I shall not think of sending him to Clapham. It is such hot weather that I cannot wear the beautiful shawl you have sent me, and shall keep it in lavender till next winter. My brother, who thanks you for your continuous bounty, will write next month, and report progress as to his dear pupil. Clive will add a postscript of his own, and I am, my dear Major, with a thousand thanks for your kindness to me, your grateful and affectionate Martha Honeyman. In a round hand, and on lines ruled with pencil. Dearest Papa, I am very well, I hope you are very well. M. Sneed brought me in a post-chaise. I like Mr. Sneed very much. I like Aunt Martha. I like Hannah.
There are no ships here. I am your affectionate son, Clive Newcomb. 2. Rue Saint-Dominique, Saint-Germain, Paris, November 15, 1820. Long separated from the country which was the home of my youth, I carried from her tender recollections, and bear her always a lively gratitude. The heaven has placed me in a position very different from that in which I knew you. I have been the mother of many children. My husband has recovered a portion of the property which the Revolution tore from us, and France, in returning to its legitimate sovereign, Received once more the nobility which accompanied his august house into exile. We, however, preceded his majesty, more happy than many of our companions, believing further resistance to be useless, dazzled, perhaps, by the brilliancy of that genius which restored order, submitted Europe and governed France, Monsieur de Florac, in the first days was reconciled to the conqueror of Marengo and Osterlitz, and held a position in his imperial court.
This submission, at first attributed to infidelity, has subsequently been pardoned to my husband. His sufferings during the hundred days made to pardon his adhesion to him who was emperor. My husband is now an old man. He was of the disastrous campaign of Moscow as one of the chamberlains of Napoleon. Withdrawn from the world, he gives his time to his feeble health, to his family, to heaven. I have not forgotten a time before those days when, according to promises given by my father, I became the wife of Monsieur de Florac. Sometimes I have heard of your career. One of my parents, Monsieur de Florac, who took service in the English India, has entertained me of you. He informed me how yet a young man you won laurels at Argom and Barpoor, how you escaped to death at La Soiree.
I have followed them, sir, on the map. I have taken part in your victories and your glory. Ah, I am not so cold, but my heart has trembled for your dangers, not so aged. But I remember the young man who learned from the pupil of Frederick the first rudiments of war, Your great heart, your love of truth, your courage were your own. None had to teach you those qualities of which a good God had endowed you. My good father is dead since many years. He, too, was permitted to see France before to die. I have read in the English journals not only that you are married, but that you have a son. Permit me to send to your wife, to your child, These accompanying tokens of an old friendship. I have seen that Mistress Newcombe was widow, and am not sorry of it.
My friend, I hope there was not that difference of age between your wife and you that I have known in other unions. I pray the good God to bless yours. I hold you always in my memory. As I write, the past comes back to me. I see a noble young man who has a soft voice and brown eyes. I see the Thames, and the smiling plains of Blackheath. I listen and pray at my chamber door as my father talks to you in our little cabinet of studies. I look from my window and see you depart. My sons are men. One follows the profession of arms. One has embraced the ecclesiastical state. My daughter is herself a mother. I remember this was your birthday. I have made myself a little fete in celebrating it. After how many years of absence, of silence?
Comtesse de Florac n'est E. de Bois. 3. My dear Thomas, Mr. Sneed, supercargo of the Ramchanda, East India Man, handed over to us yesterday your letter, and today I have purchased £3,323, six and eight pence, Three per cent consoles in our joint names, H and B Newcomb, held for your little boy. Mr. S gives a very favorable account of the little man, and left him in perfect health two days since at the house of his aunt, Miss Honeyman. We have placed 200 pounds to that lady's credit at your desire. Lady Anne is charmed with the present which she received yesterday, and says the white shawl is a great deal too handsome. My mother is also greatly pleased with hers, and has forwarded, by the coach to Brighton to-day, a packet of books, tracts, etc., suited for his tender age for your little boy.
She heard of you lately from the Reverend T. Sweatenham on his return from India. He spoke of your kindness, and of the hospitable manner in which you had received him at your house, and alluded to you in a very handsome way in the course of the Thanksgiving that evening. I dare say my mother will ask your little boy to the hermitage, and when we have a house of our own, I am sure Anne and I will be very happy to see him. Yours affectionately, Major Newcomb B. Newcomb. Four. My dear Colonel, Did I not know the generosity of your heart and the bountiful means which heaven has put at your disposal in order to gratify that noble disposition? Were I not certain that the small sum I required will permanently place me beyond the reach of the difficulties of life, and will infallibly be repaid before six months are over?
Believe me, I never would have ventured upon that bold step which our friendship carried on Epistolarily as it has been, our relationship and your admirable disposition have induced me to venture to take. That elegant and commodious chapel, known as Lady Whittlesey's Denmark Street Mayfair, being for sale, I have determined on venturing my all in its acquisition, and in laying, as I hope, the foundation of a competence for myself and excellent sister. What is a lodging-house at Brighton? But an uncertain maintenance. The mariner on the sea before those cliffs is no more sure of wind and wave, or of fish to his laborious net, than the Brighton houseowner, bred in affluence she may have been, and used to unremitting plenty, to the support of the casual travelers who visit the city.
On one day they come in shoals, it is true, but where are they on the next? For many months my poor sister's first floor was a desert, until occupied by your noble little boy, my nephew and pupil. Clive is everything that a father's, an uncle's, who loves him as a father, a pastor's, a teacher's affections could desire. He is not one of those premature geniuses whose much-vaunted infantine talents disappear along with adolescence. He is not, I frankly own, more advanced in his classical and mathematical studies than some children even younger than himself, but he has acquired the rudiments of health. He has laid in a store of honesty and good humor, which are not less likely to advance him in life than mere science and language, than the as in presenti, or the pons as in aurum.
But I forget, in thinking of my dear little friend and pupil, The subject of this letter, namely the acquisition of the proprietary chapel to which I have alluded, and the hopes, nay, certainty of a fortune, if aught below is certain, which that acquisition holds out. What is a curacy but a synonym for starvation? If we accuse the Eremites of old of wasting their lives in unprofitable wildernesses, What shall we say to many a hermit of Protestant and so-called civilized times who hides his head in a solitude in Yorkshire, and buries his probably fine talents in a Lincolnshire fen? Have I genius? Am I blessed with gifts of eloquence, to thrill and soothe, to arouse the sluggish, to terrify the sinful, to cheer and convince the timid?
To lead the blind groping in darkness, and to trample the audacious skeptic in the dust. My own conscience, besides a hundred testimonials from places of popular, most popular worship, from reverend prelates, from distinguished clergy, tells me I have these gifts. A voice within me cries, Go forth, Charles Honeyman, fight the good fight, wipe the tears of the repentant sinner. Sing of hope to the agonized criminal, whisper courage, brother, courage, at the ghastly deathbed, and strike down the infidel with the lance of evidence and shield of reason. In a pecuniary point of view, I am confident, nay, the calculations may be established as irresistibly as an algebraic equation, that I can realize, as incumbent of Lady Whittlesey's chapel, the sum of not less than one thousand pounds per annum.
Such a sum, with economy, and without it, what sum were sufficient, will enable me to provide amply for my wants, to discharge my obligations to you, to my sister, and some other creditors, very, very unlike you, and to place Miss Honeyman in a home more worthy of her than that which she now occupies, only to vacate it, at the beck of every passing stranger.
My sister does not disapprove of my plan, into which enter some modifications which I have not, as yet, submitted to her, being anxious at first that they should be sanctioned by you. From the income of the Whittlesea Chapel, I propose to allow Miss Honeyman the sum of two hundred pounds per annum paid quarterly. This, with her private property, which she has kept more Thriftly, than her unfortunate and confiding brother guarded his, for whenever I had a guinea a tale of distress would melt it into half a sovereign, will enable Miss Honeyman to live in a way becoming my father's daughter. Comforted, With this provision, as my sister will be, I would suggest that our dearest young Clive should be transferred from her petticoat government, and given up to the care of his affectionate uncle and tutor.
His present allowance will most liberally suffice for his expenses, board, lodging, and education while under my roof, and I shall be able to exert a paternal, a pastoral influence over his studies, his conduct, and his highest welfare, which I cannot so conveniently exercise at Brighton, where I am but Miss Honeyman's stipendiary, and where I often have to submit in cases where I know, for dearest Clive's own welfare, it is I, and not my sister, should be paramount.
I have given then to a friend, the Reverend Marcus Flather, a draft for two hundred and fifty pounds sterling, drawn upon you at your agent's in Calcutta, which some will go in liquidation of dear Clive's first year's board with me, or, upon my word of honor, as a gentleman and clergyman, shall be paid back at three months after sight, if you will draw upon me. As I never, no, were it my last penny in the world, would dishonor your draft, I implore you, my dear Colonel, not to refuse mine. My credit in this city, where credit is everything, and the awful future so little thought of, my engagements to Mr. Flather, my earned prospects in life, and the comfort of my dear sister's declining years, all, all depend upon this bold, this eventful measure.
My ruin, or my earthly happiness, lies entirely in your hands. Can I doubt which way your kind heart will lead you? and that you will come to the aid of your affectionate brother-in-law? Charles Honeyman. Our little Clive has been to London on a visit to his uncles and to the hermitage, Clapham, to pay his duty to his step-grandmother, the wealthy Mrs. Newcomb. I pass over words disparaging of myself which the child in his artless prattles subsequently narrated. She was very gracious to him, and presented him with a five-pound note, a copy of Kirk White's poems, and a work called Little Henry and his Bearer, relating to India, and the excellent Catechism of our Church. Clive is full of humor, and I enclose you a rude scrap representing the Bishopess of Clapham, as she is called.
The other figure is a rude Though entertaining sketch of some other droll personage. Lieutenant Colonel Newcomb, etc. 5. My dear Colonel, the Reverend Marcus Flather has just written me a letter at which I am greatly shocked and perplexed, informing me that my brother Charles has given him a draught upon you for two hundred and fifty pounds. When goodness knows, it is not you, but we, who are many, many hundred pounds debtors to you. Charles has explained that he drew the bill at your desire, that you wrote to say you would be glad to serve him in any way, and that the money is wanted to make his fortune. Yet I don't know. Poor Charles is always going to make his fortune, and has never done it.
That school which he bought, and for which you and me between us paid the purchase money, turned out no good. And the only pupils left at the end of the first half-year were two woolly-headed poor little mulattoes, whose father was in jail at St. Kitts, and whom I kept actually in my own second-floor back room, whilst the lawyers were settling things, and Charles was away in France, and until my dearest little Clive came to live with me. Then, As he was too small for a great school, I thought Clive could not do better than stay with his old aunt and have his uncle Charles for a tutor, who is one of the finest scholars in the world. I wish you could hear him in the pulpit. His delivery is grander and more impressive than any divine now in England, his sermons you have subscribed for, and likewise his book of elegant poems, which are pronounced to be very fine.
When he returned from Calais, and those horrid lawyers had left off warranting him, I thought, as his frame was much shattered and he was too weak to take a curacy, that he could not do better than become Clive's tutor, and agreed to pay him out of your handsome donation of two hundred and fifty pounds for Clive, a sum of one hundred pounds per year, so that, when the board of the two and Clive's clothing are taken into consideration, I think you will see that no great profit is left to Miss Martha Honeyman.
Charles talks to me of his new church in London, and of making me some grand allowance. The poor boy is very affectionate, and always building castles in the air, and of having Clive to live with him in London. Now this mustn't be, and I won't hear of it. Charles is too kind to be a schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It was only the other day, after his return from his grandmamas, regarding which I wrote you, per Muramputa the twenty-third alt, that I found a picture of Mrs. Newcomb and Charles, too, and of both their spectacles quite like. I put it away, but some rogue, I suppose, has stolen it. He has done me and Hannah, too. Mr. Speck, the artist, laughed and took it home, and says he is a wonder at drawing.
Instead, then, of allowing Clive to go with Charles to London next month, where my brother is bent on going, I shall send Clive to Dr. Timpany's school, Marine Parade, of which I hear the best account, but I hope you will think of soon sending him to a great school. My father always said it was the best place for boys, and I have a brother to whom my poor mother spared the rod, and who, I fear, has turned out but a spoilt child. I am, dear Colonel, your most faithful servant, Martha Honeyman. Lieutenant Colonel Newcomb, C.B.
Six. My dear brother, I hasten to inform you of a calamity which, though it might be looked for in the course of nature, has occasioned deep grief not only in our family, but in this city. This morning, at half-past four o'clock, our beloved and respected mother, Sophia Alethea Newcomb, expired at the advanced age of eighty-three years. On the night of Tuesday, Wednesday, the 12th, 13th, having been engaged reading and writing in her library until a late hour, and having dismissed the servants, whom she never would allow to sit up for her, as well as my brother and his wife, who always are in the habit of retiring early, Mrs. Newcomb extinguished the lamps, took a bedchamber candle to return to her room, and must have fallen on the landing where she was discovered by the maids sitting with her head reclining against the balustrades, and endeavoring to staunch a wound in her forehead, which was bleeding profusely, having struck in a fall against the stone step of the stair.
When Mrs. Newcomb was found, she was speechless, but still sensible, and medical aid being sent for, she was carried to bed. Mr. Newcomb and Lady Anne both hurried to her apartment, and she knew them, and took the hands of each. But paralysis had probably ensued in consequence of the shock of the fall, nor was her voice ever heard, except in inarticulate moanings, since the hour on the previous evening when she gave them her blessing and bade them good-night. Thus perished this good and excellent woman, the truest Christian, the most charitable friend to the poor and needful, The head of this great house of business, the best and most affectionate of mothers. The contents of her will have long been known to us, and that document was dated one month after our lamented father's death.
Mr. Thomas Newcomb's property, being divided equally amongst his three sons, the property of his second wife naturally devolves upon her own issue, my brother Brian and myself. There are very heavy legacies to servants, and to charitable and religious institutions, of which, in life, she was the munificent patroness, and I regret, my dear brother, that no memorial to you should have been left by my mother, because she often spoke of you latterly in terms of affection, and on the very day on which she died commenced a letter to your little boy, which was left unfinished on the library table. My brother said that on that same day, at breakfast, she pointed to a volume of Orm's Hindustan, the book, she said, which set poor dear Tom wild to go to India.
I know you will be pleased. To hear of these proofs of returning goodwill and affection in one who often spoke loudly of her early regard for you, I have no more time, under the weight of business which this present affliction entails, than to say that I am, yours, dear brother, very sincerely, H. Newcomb. Lieutenant Colonel Newcomb, etc.
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4 04 - Chapter 4: In which the Author and the Hero resume their Acquaintance 23:10
In which the author and the hero resume their acquaintance. If we are to narrate the youthful history, not only of the hero of this tale, but of the hero's father, we shall never have done with nursery biography. A gentleman's grandmother may delight in fond recapitulation of her darling's boyish frolics and early genius, but shall we weary our kind readers by this infantile prattle and set down the revered British public for an old woman? Only to two or three persons in all the world, Are the reminiscences of a man's early youth interesting to the parent who nursed him, to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves him, to himself always and supremely, Whatever may be his actual prosperity or ill-fortune, his present age, illness, difficulties, renown, or disappointments, the dawn of his life still shines brightly for him.
The early griefs and delights and attachments remain with him ever faithful and dear. I shall ask leave to say, regarding the juvenile biography of Mr. Clive Newcomb, of whose history I am the chronicler, only so much as is sufficient to account for some peculiarities of his character, and for his subsequent career in the world. Although we were schoolfellows, my acquaintance with young Newcombe at the seat of learning where we first met was very brief and casual. He had the advantage of being six years the junior of his present biographer, and such a difference of age between lads at a public school puts intimacy out of the question. A junior ensign being no more familiar with the commander-in-chief at the horse guards, or a barrister on his first circuit with my Lord Justice on the bench, than the newly-breached infant in the petties with the senior boy in a tailed coat.
As we knew each other at home, as our school phrase was, and our families being somewhat acquainted, Newcomb's maternal uncle The Reverend Charles Honeyman, the highly gifted preacher and incumbent of Lady Rittlesea's Chapel, Denmark Street, Mayfair, when he brought the child, after the Christmas vacation of 1820, to the Greyfriars' school, recommended him in a neat complimentary speech to my superintendents and protection. My uncle, Major Pendennis, had for a while a seat in the chapel of this sweet and popular preacher, and professed, as a great number of persons of fashion did, a great admiration for him, an admiration which I shared in my early youth, but which has been modified by maturer judgment.
Mr. Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his young nephew's father, Colonel Thomas Newcomb, C.B., was a most gallant and distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the Honourable East India Company, and that his uncles, the Colonel's half-brothers, were the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcombe, Hobson Newcombe, Esquire, Dianstone Square, and Marblehead, Sussex, and Sir Brian Newcombe of Newcombe and Park Lane, whom, to name, says Mr. Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which he decorated the commonest circumstances of life, is to designate two of the merchant princes of the wealthiest city the world has ever known, and one, if not two, of the leaders of that aristocracy which rallies round a throne of the most elegant and refined of European sovereigns.
I promised Mr. Honeyman to do what I could. for the boy, and he proceeded to take leave of his little nephew in my presence in terms equally eloquent, pulling out a long and very slender green purse, from which he extracted the sum of two-and-sixpence which he presented to the child, who received the money with rather a queer twinkle in his blue eyes. After that day's school, I met my little protg in the neighborhood of the pastry-cooks, regaling himself with raspberry tarts. "'You must not spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave you,' said I, having perhaps even at that early age a slightly satirical turn, "'in tarts and ginger-beer.' The urchin rubbed the raspberry jam off his mouth and said, "'It doesn't matter, sir, for I've got lots more.' "'A much,' says the grand inquisitor, for the formula of interrogation used to be, when the new boy came to the school, What's your name?
Who's your father? And how much money have you got? The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy. Uncle Hobson, says he, gave me two. Aunt Hobson gave me one. No, Aunt Hobson gave me thirty shillings. Uncle Newcomb gave me three pound, and Aunt Anne gave me one pound five, and Aunt Honeyman gave me one pound five. Sent me ten shillings in a letter, and Ethel wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn't have it, you know, because Ethel's younger than me, and I have plenty. "'And who is Ethel?' asks the senior boy, smiling at the artless youth's confessions. "'Ethel is my cousin,' replies Little Newcomb. "'Aunt Anne's daughter.
There's Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Anne wanted the baby to be called Baudicea. Only Uncle wouldn't. And there's Barnes and Egbert and Little Alfred, Only he don't count. He's quite a baby, you know. Egbert and me was at school at Timpanis. He's going to Eton, next half. He's older than me, but I can lick him. And how old is Egbert? asks the smiling senior. Egbert's ten, and I'm nine, and Ethel's seven, replies the little chubby-faced hero, digging his hands deep into his trousers' pockets, and jingling all the sovereigns there. I advised him to let me be his banker. And keeping one out of his many gold pieces, he handed over the others, on which he drew with great liberality till his whole stock was expended.
The school hours of the upper and under boys were different at that time, the little fellows coming out of their hall half an hour before the fifth and sixth forms, and many a time I used to find my little blue jacket in waiting, with his honest square face and white hair, and bright blue eyes, and I knew that he was come to draw on his bank. Ere long one of the pretty blue eyes was shot up, and a fine black one substituted in its place. He had been engaged, it appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a giant of his own form, whom he had worsted in the combat. Didn't I pitch into him, that's all, says he, in the elation of victory, and when I asked whence the quarrel arose, He stoutly informed me that Wolf Beiner, his opponent, had been bullying a little boy, and that he, the gigantic Newcomb, wouldn't stand it.
So, being called away from the scroll, I said farewell, and God bless you to the brave little man who remained a while at the Greyfriars, where his career and troubles had only just begun. Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man occupying chambers in the temple, when our von cont took place in the manner already described. Poor Costigan's outrageous behavior had caused my meeting with my schoolfellow of early days to terminate so abruptly and unpleasantly that I scarce expected to see Clive again, or at any rate to renew my acquaintances with the indignant East Indian warrior who had quitted our company in such a huff. Breakfast, however, was scarcely over in my chambers the next morning, when there came a knock at the outer door, and my clerk introduced Colonel Newcomb and Mr.
Newcomb. Perhaps the joint occupant of the chambers in Lamb Court Temple felt a little pang of shame at hearing the name of the visitors, for, if the truth must be told, I was engaged pretty much as I had been occupied on the night previous, and was smoking a cigar over the Times newspaper. How many young men in the temple smoke a cigar after breakfast as they read the Times? My friend and companion of those days and all days, Mr. George Warrington, was employed with his short pipe, and was not in the least disconcerted at the appearance of the visitors, as he would not have been had the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped in. Little Clive looked curiously about our queer premises, While the Colonel shook me cordially by the hand.
No traces of yesterday's wrath were visible on his face, but a friendly spire lighted his bronze countenance, as he, too, looked round the old room with its dingy curtains and prints and bookcases, its litter of proof sheets, blotted manuscripts and books for review, empty soda-water bottles, cigar-boxes and what not. I went off in a flame of fire last night. Says the colonel, and being cool this morning, thought it but my duty to call on Mr. Pendennis and apologize for my abrupt behavior. The conduct of that tipsy old captain, what is his name, was so abominable that I could not bear that Clive should be any longer in the same room with him, and I went off without saying a word of thanks or good-night to my son's old friend.
I owe you a shake of the hand for last night, Mr. Pendennis, And, so saying, he was kind enough to give me his hand a second time. "'And this is the abode of the Muses, is it, sir?' Our guest went on. "'I know your writings very well. Clive here used to send me the Paul Mall Gazette every month.' "'We took it at Smithel regular,' says Clive. "'Always patronize Grayfriars men. Smithel, it must be explained, is a fond abbreviation for Smithfield.' Near to which great mart of mutton and oxen our school is situated, and old Cistercians often playfully designate their place of education by the name of the neighboring market. Drife sent me the Gazette every month, and I read your romance of Walter Lorraine in my boat as I was coming down the river to Calcutta.
Have Penn's immortal productions made their appearance on board Bengali Budge Rose? And are there leaves floating on the yellow banks of Juma? asked Warrington, that sceptic who respects no work of modern genius. I gave your book to Mrs. Timmons at Calcutta, says the colonel simply. I dare say you have heard of her. She is one of the most dashing women in all India. She was delighted with your work, and I can tell you it is not with every man's writing that Mrs. Timmons is pleased, he added with a knowing air. It's capital, broke in Clive. I say, that part you know where Walter runs away with Niera and the general can't pursue them, though he has got the post-chaise at the door, because Tim O'Toole has hidden his wooden leg.
By Jove, it's capital. All the funny part. I don't like the sentimental stuff and suicide and that. And as for poetry, I hate poetry. Pens is not first chop. says Warrington. "'I am obliged to take the young man down from time to time, Colonel Newcomb, otherwise he would grow so conceited there would be no bearing him.' "'I say,' says Clyde, "'what were you about to remark?' asks Mr. Warrington, with an air of great interest. "'I say, Pendennis,' continued the artless youth, "'I thought you were a great swell. When we used to read about the grand parties in the Pall Mall Gazette, The fellows used to say you were every one of them, and you see, I thought you must have chambers in the Albany, and lots of horses to ride, and a valet, and a groom, and a cab, at the very least.
Sir, says the colonel, I hope it is not your practice to measure and estimate gentlemen by such paltry standards as those. A man of letters follows the noblest calling which any man can pursue. I would rather be the author of a work of genius than be governor-general of India. I admire genius. I salute it wherever I meet it. I like my own profession better than any in the world, but then it is because I am suited to it. I couldn't write four lines in verse. No, not to save me from being shot. A man cannot have all the advantages of life. Who would not be poor if he could be sure of possessing genius and winning fame and immortality, sir? Think of Dr. Johnson, what a genius he had, and where did he live?
In apartments that, I dare say, were no better than these, which, I am sure, gentlemen, are most cheerful and pleasant," says the colonel, thinking he had offended us. One of the great pleasures and delights which I had proposed to myself on coming home was to be allowed to have the honor of meeting with men of learning and genius, with wits, poets, and historians, if I may be so fortunate, and of benefiting by their conversation. I left England too young to have that privilege. In my father's house money was thought of, I fear, rather than intellect. Neither he nor I had the opportunities which I wish you to have. And I am surprised you should think of reflecting upon Mr. Pendennis's poverty, or of feeling any sentiment but respect and admiration when you enter the apartments of the poet and the literary man.
I have never been in the rooms of a literary man before, the colonel said, turning away from his son to us. Excuse me, is that—that paper—really a proof-sheet? We handed over to him that curiosity smiling, and the enthusiasm of the honest gentleman who could admire what to us was unpalatable as a tart to a pastry-cook. Being with men of letters, he thought proper to make his conversation entirely literary, and in the course of my subsequent more intimate acquaintance with him, Though I knew he had distinguished himself in twenty actions, he never could be brought to talk of his military feats or experience, but passed them by, as if they were subjects utterly unworthy of notice. I found he believed Dr.
Johnson to be the greatest of men. The doctor's words were constantly in his mouth, and he never travelled without Boswell's life. Besides these, he read Caesar and Tacitus. With translations, sir, with translations, I'm thankful that I kept some of my Latin from the Greyfriars. And he quoted sentences from the Latin grammar, apropos of a hundred events of common life, and with perfect simplicity and satisfaction to himself. Besides the above-named books, the Spectator, Don Quixote, and Sir Charles Grandison formed a part of his traveling library. "'I read these, sir,' he used to say, "'because I like to be in the company of gentlemen, and Sir Roger de Coverley, and Sir Charles Granderson, and Don Quixote are the finest gentlemen in the world.' And when we asked him his opinion of fielding—'Tom Jones, sir, Joseph Andrews, sir,' he cried, twirling his mustachios.
"'I read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad company, and did other low and disgraceful things.' Of which I'm ashamed now. Sir, in my father's library I happened to fall in with those books, and I read them in secret, just as I used to go in private and drink beer, and fight cocks, and smoke pipes with Jack and Tom, the grooms in the stables. Mrs. Newcomb found me, I recollect, with one of those books, and thinking it might be by Mrs. Hanna Moore, or some of that sort, For it was a grave-looking volume, and, though I wouldn't lie about that or anything else, never did, sir, never before heaven have I told more than three lies in my life. I kept my own counsel. I say, she took it herself to read one evening, and read on gravely, for she had no more idea of a joke than I have of Hebrew, until she came to the part about Lady B.
and Joseph Andrews, and then she shut the book, sir. And you should have seen the look she gave me. I own—I burst out a-laughing, for I was a wild young rebel, sir. But she was in the right, sir, and I was in the wrong. A book, sir, that tells the story of a parcel of servants, of a pack of footmen and ladies'-maids fuddling in ale-houses. Do you suppose I want to know what my kitbogars and kousamars are doing? I am as little proud as any man in the world. But there must be distinction, sir, and as it is my lot and Clive's lot to be a gentleman, I won't sit in the kitchen and boose in the servants' hall. As for that Tom Jones, that fellow that sells himself, sir, by heavens my blood boils when I think of him, I wouldn't sit down in the same room with such a fellow, sir.
If he came in at that door, I would say— How dare you, you hireling ruffian! To sully with your presence an apartment where my young friend and I are conversing together, where two gentlemen, I say, are taking their wine after dinner? How dare you, you degraded villain? I don't mean you, sir. I beg your pardon. The colonel was striding about the room in his loose garments, puffing his cigar fiercely anon, and then waving his yellow bandana, And it was by the arrival of Larkins, my clerk, that his apostrophe to Tom Jones was interrupted. He, Larkins, taking care not to show his amazement, having been schooled not to show or feel surprise at anything he might see or hear in our chambers. "'What is it, Larkins?' said I.
Larkins's other master had taken his leave some time before, having business which called him away, and leaving me with the honest colonel. quite happy with his talk and cigar. "'It's Brett's man,' says Larkins. "'I confounded Brett's man,' and told the boy to bid him call again. Young Larkins came grinning back in a moment, and said, "'Please, sir, he says his orders is not to go away without the money. Confound him again,' I cried. "'Tell him I have no money in the house. He must come tomorrow.' As I spoke, Clive was looking in wonder and the colonel's countenance assumed an appearance of the most dolorous sympathy. Nevertheless, as with a great effort, he fell to talking about Tom Jones again, and continued, No, sir, I have no words to express my indignation against such a fellow as Tom Jones, but I forgot that I need not speak.
The great and good Dr. Johnson has settled that question. You remember what he said to Mr. Boswell about Fielding? And yet Gibbons praises him, Colonel," said the Colonel's interlocutor. And that is no small praise. He says that Mr. Fielding was of the family that drew its origin from the Counts of Habsburg. But Gibbon, Gibbon was an infidel, and I would not give the end of this cigar for such a man's opinion. If Mr. Fielding was a gentleman by birth, he ought to have known better, and so much the worse for him that he did not. But what am I talking of, wasting your valuable time? No more smoke, thank you. I must away into the city, but would not pass the temple without calling on you, and thanking my boy's old protector.
You will have the kindness to come and dine with us tomorrow, the next day, your own day. Your friend is going out of town? I hope on his return to have the pleasure of making his further acquaintance. Come, Clive. Clive, who had been deep in a volume of Hogarth's engravings, During the above discussion, or rather, oration of his father's, started up and took leave, beseeching me at the same time to come soon and see his pony, and so, with renewed greetings, we parted. I was scarcely returned to my newspaper again when the knocker of our door was again agitated, and the colonel ran back, looking very much agitated and confused. I beg pardon, says he. I think I left my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my—my— Larkins had quitted the room by this time, and then he began more unreservedly.
"'My dear young friend,' says he, "'a thousand pardons for what I am going to say, but as Clive's friend, I know I may take that liberty. I have left the boy in the court. I know the fate of men of letters and genius. When we were here just now, there came a single knock, a demand, that—'that you did not seem to be momentarily able to meet.' Now do—do pardon the liberty, and let me be your banker. You said you were engaged in a new work. It will be a masterpiece, I am sure, if it's like the last. Put me down for twenty copies, and allow me to settle with you in advance. I may be off, you know. I'm a bird of passage, a restless old soldier. My dear Colonel, said I, quite touched and pleased by this extreme kindness, my done was but the Washoebensboy, and Mrs.
Brett is in my debt. If I am not mistaken, besides, I already have a banker in your family. In my family, my dear sir, Messieurs Newcomb in Threadneedle Street are good enough to keep my money for me when I have any, and I am happy to say they have some of mine in hand now. I am almost sorry that I am not in want in order that I might have the pleasure of receiving a kindness from you." And we shook hands for the fourth time that morning, and the kind gentleman Left me to rejoin his son.
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5 05 - Chapter 5: Clive's Uncles 46:55
The Newcomes.
The Newcombe's The Dinner So Hospitably Offered by the Colonel was gladly accepted, and followed by many more entertainments at the cost of that good-natured friend. He, and an Indian chum of his, lived at this time at Nerrot's Hotel, in Clifford Street, where Mr. Clive, too, found the good cheer a great deal more to his taste than the homely though plentiful fare at Greyfriars, at which, of course, when boys, we all turned up our noses. Though many a poor fellow, in the struggles of after-life, has looked back with regret, very likely, to that well-spread youthful table. Thus my intimacy with the father and the son grew to be considerable, and a great deal more to my liking than my relations with Clive's city uncles, which have been mentioned in the last chapter, and which were, in truth, exceedingly distant and awful.
If all the private accounts kept by those worthy bankers were like mine, where would have been Newcombe Hall and Park Lane, Marblehead and Brianston Square? I used, by strong efforts of self-denial, to maintain a balance of two or three guineas untouched at the bank, so that my account might still remain open, and fancied the clerks and cashiers grinned when I went to draw for money. Rather than face that awful counter, I would send Larkins, the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress. As for entering the private parlour at the back, wherein, behind the glazed partition, I could see the bald heads of Newcombe brothers engaged with other capitalists or peering over the newspaper, I would as soon have thought of walking into the doctor's own library at Greyfriars, or of volunteering to take an armchair in a dentist's studio.
and have a tooth out, as of entering into that awful precinct. My good uncle, on the other hand, the late Major Pendennis, who kept naturally but a very small account with Hobsons, would walk into the parlour and salute the two magnates who govern there with the ease and gravity of a Rothschild. "'My good fellow,' the kind old gentleman would say to his nephew and pupil, "'il faut se faire valoir.' I tell you, sir, your bankers like to keep every gentleman's account, and it's a mistake to suppose they are only civil to their great moneyed clients. Look at me. I go in to them and talk to them whenever I'm in the city. I hear the news of change, and carry it to our end of the town. It looks well, sir, to be well with your banker, and at our end of London, perhaps, I can do a good turn for the Newcombs.
It is certain that in his own kingdom of Mayfair and St. James's, my revered uncle was at least the banker's equal. On my coming to London, he was kind enough to procure me invitations to some of Lady Anne Newcombe's evening parties in Park Lane, as likewise to Mrs. Newcombe's entertainments in Brianston Square, though I confess, of these latter after a while, I was a lax and negligent attendant. Between ourselves, my good fellow," the shrewd old mentor of those days would say, Mrs. Newcombe's parties are not altogether select, nor is she a lady of the very highest breeding, but it gives a man a good air to be seen at his banker's house. I recommend you to go for a few minutes whenever you are asked.
And go I accordingly did sometimes, though I always fancied, rightly or wrongly, from Mrs. Newcombe's manner to me. that she knew I had but thirty shillings left at the bank. Once and again, in two or three years, Mr. Hobson Newcombe would meet me, and ask me to fill a vacant place that day or the next evening at his table, which invitation I might accept or otherwise. But one does not eat a man's salt, as it were, at these dinners. There is nothing sacred in this kind of London hospitality. Your white waistcoat fills a gap in a man's table. and retires fields for its service of the evening. "'Gad!' the dear old Major used to say. "'If we were not to talk freely of those we dine with, how mum London would be!' Some of the pleasantest evenings I have ever spent have been when we have sate after a great dinner, en petit comité, and abused the people who are gone.
You have your turn, mon cher, but why not? Do you suppose I fancy my friends haven't found out my little faults, Peculiarities? And as I can't help it, I let myself be executed, and offer up my oddities de bon grasse. Entrez nous. Brother Hobson Newcombe is a good fellow, but a vulgar fellow, and his wife—his wife exactly suits him. Once a year, Lady Anne Newcombe, about whom my mentor was much more circumspect, for I somehow used to remark that as the rank of persons grew higher, Major Pendennis spoke of them with more caution and respect. Once or twice in a year, Lady Anne Newcombe opened her saloons for a concert and a ball, at both of which the whole street was crowded with carriages, and all the great world, and some of the small, were present.
Mrs. Newcombe had her ball, too, and her concert of English music, in opposition to the Italian singers of her sister-in-law. The music of her country, Mrs. N. said, was good enough for her. The truth must be told that there was no love lost between the two ladies. Brionstone Square could not forget the superiority of Park Lane's rank, and the catalogue of grandees at dear Anne's parties fills dear Mariah's heart with envy. There are people upon whom rank and worldly goods make such an impression. that they naturally fall down on their knees and worship the owners. There are others to whom the sight of prosperity is offensive, and who never see Devey's chariot but to growl and hoot at it. Mrs.
Newcombe, as far as my humble experience would lead me to suppose, is not only envious, but proud of her envy. She mistakes it for honesty and public spirit. She will not bow down to kiss the hand of a haughty aristocracy. She is a merchant's wife and an attorney's daughter. There is no pride about her. Her brother-in-law, poor dear Brian, considering everybody knows everything in London, was there ever such a delusion as his, was welcome, after banking hours, to forsake his own friends for his wife's fine relations, and to dangle after lords and ladies in Mayfair. She had no such absurd vanity. Not she. She imparted these opinions pretty liberally to all her acquaintances in almost all her conversations.
It was clear that the two ladies were best to part. There are some folks who will see insolence in persons of rank, as there are others who will insist, that all clergymen are hypocrites, all reformers villains, all placemen plunderers, and so forth. And Mrs. Newcombe never, I am sure, imagined that she had a prejudice, or that she was other than an honest, independent, high-spirited woman. Both of the ladies had command over their husbands, who were of soft natures, easily led by women, as, in truth, are all the males of this family. Accordingly, when Sir Brian Newcombe voted for the Tory candidate in the city, Mr. Hobson Newcombe plumped for the reformer. While Bryan, in the House of Commons, sat among the mild conservatives, Hobson unmasked traitors and thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to make the Marylebone vestry thrill with enthusiasm.
When Lady Anne, her husband, and her flock of children fasted in Lent, and declared for the High Church doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms of alarm regarding the progress of popery, and shuddered out of the chapel where she had a pew, because the clergyman there, for a very brief season, appeared to preach in a surplus. Poor bewildered Honeyman! It was a sad day for you, when you appeared in your neat pulpit with your fragrant pocket-handkerchief, and your sermon likewise all millefeures, in a trim, prim, freshly mangled surplus, which you thought became you. How did you look aghast and pass your jewelled hand through your curls as you saw Mrs. Newcomb, who had been as good as five-and-twenty pounds a year to you, look up from her pew, seize hold of Mr.
Newcomb, fling open the pew-door, drive out with her parasol, her little flock of children, bewildered but not ill-pleased to get away from the sermon, and summon John from the back seats to bring away the bag of prayer-books. Many a good dinner did Charles Honeyman lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why did the high priest of his diocese order him to put it on? It was delightful to view him afterwards, and the airs of martyrdom which he assumed. Had they been going to tear him to pieces with wild beasts next day, he could scarcely have looked more meek, or resigned himself more pathetically to the persecutors. But I am advancing matters. At this early time of which I write, a period not twenty years since, surplices were not even thought of in conjunction with sermons.
Clerical gentlemen have appeared in them, and under the heavy hand of persecution have sunk down in their pulpits again as Jack pops back into his box. Charles Honeyman's elegant discourses were at this time preached in a rich silk Masters of Arts gown, Presented to him, along with a teapot full of sovereigns, by his affectionate congregation at Leatherhead. But that I may not be accused of prejudice in describing Mrs. Newcombe and her family, unless the reader should suppose that some slight offered to the writer by this wealthy and virtuous banker's lady was the secret reason for this unfavourable sketch of her character, let me be allowed to report, as accurately as I can remember them, The words of a kinsman of her own, Giles, Esquire, whom I had the honour of meeting at her table, and who, as we walked away from Branstown Square, was kind enough to discourse very freely about the relatives whom he had just left.
"'That was a good dinner, sir,' said Mr. Giles, puffing the cigar which I offered to him, and disposed to be very social and communicative. "'Hobst and Newcombe's table!' is about as good a one as any I ever put my legs under. You didn't have twice of turtle, sir. I remarked that. I always do, at that house especially, for I know where Newcombe gets it. We belong to the same livery in the city, Hobson and I. The Oyster Munger's Company, sir. And we like our turtle good, I can tell you. Good, and a great deal of it, you say. Hey, hey, not so bad. "'I suppose you're a young barrister sucking lawyer or that sort of thing, because you was put at the end of the table and nobody took notice of you.
That's my place, too. I'm a relative, and Newcombe asks me if he has got a place to spare. He met me in the city today and says, "'Tom,' says he, "'there's some dinner in the square at half-past seven. I wish you would go and fetch Louisa, whom we haven't seen this ever so long.' Louisa is my wife, sir. Mariah's sister. Newcombe married that girl from my house. No, no," says I. Hobson, Louisa's engaged nursing number eight. That's our number, sir. The truth is, between you and me, sir, my missus won't come any more at no price. She can't stand it. Mrs. Newcombe's damn patronising airs is enough to choke off anybody. Well, Hobson, my boy, says I, A good dinner's a good dinner, and I'll come, though Louisa won't, that is, can't.
While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by Claret, was discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps of the Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcombe, and had accepted that dinner which Mrs. Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles continued talking. "'I'm an old stager, I am. I don't mind the rows between the women. I believe Mrs. Newcomb and Lady Newcomb's just as bad, too. I know Mariah is always driving at her one way or the other, and calling her proud and aristocratic, and that—and yet my wife says Mariah, who pretends to be such a radical, never asks us to meet the baronet and his lady.' "'And why should she, Lou, my dear?' Says I.
I don't want to meet Lady Newcombe, nor Lord Q, nor any of them. Lord Q, ain't it an odd name? Tearing young Swell, that Lord Q. Tremendous wild fellow.
I was a clerk in that house, sir, as a young man. I was there in the old woman's time, and Mr. Newcombe's, the father of these young men, as good a man as ever stood on change. And then, Mr. Giles, warming with his subject, enters at large into the history of the house. "'You see, sir,' says he, "'the banking house of Hobson Brothers, or Newcombe Brothers, as the partners of the firm really are, is not one of the leading banking firms of the City of London, but a most respectable house of many years standing and doing a most respectable business, especially in the dissenting connection.' After the business came into the hands of the Newcombe brothers, Hobson Newcombe, Esquire, and Sir Brian Newcombe, Bart, M.P., Mr.
Giles shows how a considerable West End connection was likewise established, chiefly through the aristocratic friends and connections of the above-named Bart.
But the best man of business, according to Mr. Giles, whom the firm of Hobson Brothers ever knew, better than her father and uncle, Better than her husband, Sir T. Newcombe, better than her sons and successors above mentioned, was the famous Sophia Alethea Hobson, afterwards Newcombe, of whom might be said what Frederick the Great said of his sister, that she was sexu femina ver ingenio, in sex a woman, and in mind a man. Nor was she, my informant told me, Without even manly personal characteristics. She had a very deep and gruff voice, and in her old age, a beard, which many a young man might envy. And as she came into the bank out of her carriage from Clapham, in her dark green pelisse with fur trimmings, in her grey beaver hat, beaver gloves, and great gold spectacles, not a clerk in that house did not tremble before her.
And it was said she only wanted a pipe in her mouth, considerably to resemble the late Field Marshal Prince Blucher. Her funeral was one of the most imposing sights ever witnessed in Clapham. There was such a crowd you might have thought it was a Derby Day. The carriages of some of the greatest city firms, and the wealthiest dissenting houses, several coaches full of ministers of all denominations, Including the established church. The carriage of the Right Honourable, the Earl of Kew, and that of his daughter, Lady Anne Newcomb, attended that revered lady's remains to their final resting-place. No less than nine sermons were preached at various places of public worship regarding her end. She fell upstairs at a very advanced age, going from the library to the bedroom.
After all the household was gone to rest, and was found by the maids in the morning, inarticulate but still alive, her head being cut frightfully with the bedroom candle with which she was retiring to her apartment. "'And,' said Mr. Giles, with great energy, "'besides the empty carriages at that funeral, and the parson in black, and the mutes and feathers and that, there were hundreds and hundreds of people who wore no black, "'And who weren't present, and who wept for their benefactress, I can tell you. She had her faults, and many of them. But the amount of that woman's charities are unheard of, sir, unheard of, and they are put to the credit side of her account up yonder.' "'The old lady had a will of her own,' my companion continued.
"'She would try and know about everybody's business out of business hours. Got to know from the young clerks what chapels they went to.' and from the clergyman whether they attended regular. Kept her sons, year after they were grown men, as if they were boys at school. And what was the consequence? They had a quarrel with Sir Thomas Newcombe's own son, a harem-scarum lad who ran away, and then was sent to India. And, between ourselves, Mr. Hobson and Mr. Bryan both, the present baronet, though at home they were as mum as Quakers at a meeting, Used to go out on the sly, sir, and be off to the play, sir, and sowed their wild oats like any other young men, sir, like any other young men. Law, bless me!
Once, as I was going away from the haymarket, if I didn't see Mr. Hobson coming out of the opera, in tights and an opera hat, sir, like Froggy Wood a-woo-and-go, of a Saturday night, too, when his ma thought him safe in bed in the city. I warrant he hadn't his opera hat on when he went to chapel with her ladyship the next morning. That very morning, as sure as my name's John Giles. When the old lady was gone, Mr. Hobson had no need of any more humbugging, but took his pleasure freely. Fighting, tandems, four in hand, anything. He and his brother, his elder brother by a quarter of an hour, were always very good friends. But after Mr. Bryan married, and there were only court cards at his table, Mr.
Hobson couldn't stand it. They weren't of his suit, he said, and for some time he said he wasn't a marrying man. Quite the contrary. But we all come to our fate, you know, and his time came as mine did. You know, we married sisters. It was thought a fine match for Polly Smith when she married the great Mr. Newcombe. But I doubt whether my old woman at home hasn't had the best of it, after all. And if ever you come Bernard Street Way on a Sunday after about six o'clock, and would like a slice of beef and a glass of port, I hope you'll come and see us. Do not let us be too angry with Colonel Newcombe's two most respectable brothers. If for some years they neglected their Indian relative, or held him in slight esteem, their mother never pardoned him, Or, at least by any actual words, admitted his restoration to favour.
For many years, as far as they knew, poor Tom was an unrepentant prodigal, wallowing in bad company, and cut off from all respectable sympathy. Their father had never had the courage to acquaint them with his more true and kind and charitable version of Tom's story, for he passed at home for no better than a black sheep. His marriage with a penniless young lady did not tend to raise him in the esteem of his relatives at Clapham. It was not until he was a widower, until he had been mentioned several times in the Gazette for distinguished military service, until they began to speak very well of him in Leadenhall Street, where the representatives of Hobson Brothers were, of course, East India proprietors, and until he remitted considerable sums of money to England.
that the bankers, his brethren, began to be reconciled to him.
I say, do not let us be hard upon them. No people are so ready to give a man a bad name as his own kinsfolk, and having made him that present, they are ever most unwilling to take it back again. If they give him nothing else in the days of his difficulty, he may be sure of their pity. and that he is held up as an example to his young cousins to avoid. If he loses his money, they call him poor fellow, and point morals out of him. If he falls among thieves, the respectable Pharisees of his race turn their heads aside, and leave him penniless and bleeding. They clap him on the back kindly enough when he returns, after shipwreck, with money in his pocket. How naturally Joseph's brothers made salaams to him, and admired him, and did him honour, when they found the poor outcast a prime minister and worth ever so much money.
Surely human nature is not much altered since the days of those primeval Jews. We would not thrust brother Joseph down a well and sell him bodily, but—but if he has scrambled out of a well of his own digging, and got out of his early bondage into renown and credit. At least we applaud him and respect him, and are proud of Joseph as a member of the family. Little Clive was the innocent and lucky object upon whom the increasing affection of the Newcombs for their Indian brother was exhibited. When he was first brought home a sickly child, consigned to his maternal aunt, the kind old maiden lady at Brighton, Hobson Brothers scarce took any notice of the little man, but left him to the entire superintendence of his own family.
Then there came a large remittance from his father, and the child was asked by Uncle Newcombe at Christmas. Then his father's name was mentioned in general orders, and Uncle Hobson asked little Clive at Midsummer. Then Lord H., a late Governor-General, coming home, and meeting the brothers at a grand dinner at the Albion, given by the Court of Directors to His Late Excellency, spoke to the bankers about that most distinguished officer, their relative, and Mrs. Hobson drove over to see his aunt, where the boy was, gave him a sovereign out of her purse, and advised strongly that he should be sent to Timpanis along with her own boy. Then Clive went from one uncle's house to another, and was liked at both.
And much preferred ponies to ride, going out after rabbits with the keeper, money in his pocket, charged to the debit of Lieutenant Colonel T. Newcombe, and clothes from the London tailor, to the homely quarters and conversation of poor kind old Aunt Honeyman at Brighton. Clive's uncles were not unkind. They liked each other. Their wives, who hated each other, united in liking Clive when they knew him, and petting the wayward, handsome boy. They were only pursuing the way of the world, which huzzahs all prosperity, and turns away from misfortune, as from some contagious disease. Indeed, how can we see a man's brilliant qualities, if he is what we call, in the shade? The gentlemen, Clive's uncles, who had their affairs to mind during the day, Society and the family, to occupy them of evenings and holidays, treated their young kinsmen, the Indian colonel's son, as other wealthy British uncles treat other young kinsmen.
They received him in his vacations kindly enough. They tipped him when he went to school. When he had the whooping-cough, a confidential young clerk went round by way of Greyfriars Square to ask after him. The sea being recommended to him, Mrs. Newcombe gave him change of air in Sussex, and transferred him to his maternal aunt at Brighton. Then it was bonjour. As the lodge-gates closed upon him, Mrs. Newcombe's heart shut up too, and confined itself within the firs, laurels, and palings which bound the home precincts. Had she not her own children and affairs? Her brood of fowls, her Sunday-school, her melon-beds, her rose-garden, Her quarrel with the parson, etc., to attend to? Mr. Newcombe, arriving on a Saturday night, hears he is gone, says, "'Oh!' and begins to ask about the new gravel walk along the cliff, and whether it is completed, and if the china-pig fattens kindly upon the new feed.
Clive, in the avuncular gig, is driven over the downs to Brighton to his maternal aunt there, and there he is a king. He has the best bedroom, Uncle Honeyman turning out for him sweetbreads for dinner, no end of jam for breakfast, excuses from Church on the plea of delicate health, his aunt's made to see him to bed, his aunt to come smiling in when he rings his bell of a morning. He is made much of, and coaxed, and dandled, and fondled, as if he were a young Duke. So he is to Miss Honeyman. He is the son of Colonel Newcombe, C.B., who sends her shawls, ivory chessmen, scented sandalwood work-boxes, and kinkob scarves, who, as she tells Martha, the maid, has fifty servants in India, at which Martha constantly exclaims, "'Law, Mum, what can he do with him, Mum?' who, when, in consequence of her misfortunes, She resolved on taking a house at Brighton, and letting part of the same furnished, sent her an order for a hundred pounds towards the expenses thereof, who gave Mr.
Honeyman, her brother, a much larger sum of money at the period of his calamity. Is it gratitude for past favours? Is it desire for more? Is it vanity of relationship? Is it love for the dead sister? Or tender regard for her offspring? which makes Mrs. Martha Honeyman so fond of her nephew. I never could count how many causes went to produce any given effect or action in a person's life, and have been for my own part many a time quite misled in my own case, fancying some grand, some magnanimous, some virtuous reason for an act of which I was proud, when, lo, some pert little satirical monitor springs up inwardly. upsetting the fond humbug which I was cherishing, the peacock's tail wherein my absurd vanity had clad itself, and says, Away with this boasting!
I am the cause of your virtue, my lad. You are pleased that yesterday at dinner you refrained from the dry champagne? My name is worldly prudence, not self-denial, and I caused you to refrain. You are pleased because you gave a guinea to Diddler? I am laziness, not generosity, which inspired you. You hug yourself because you resisted other temptation? Coward! It was because you dared not run the risk of the wrong. Out with your peacock's plumage! Walk off in the feathers which nature gave you, and thank heaven they are not altogether black!
In a word, Aunt Honeyman was a kind soul. And such was the splendour of Clive's father, of his gifts, his generosity, his military services, and companionship of the battles, that the lad did really appear a young duke to her. And Mrs. Newcombe was not unkind, and if Clive had been really a young duke, I am sure he would have had the best bedroom at Marble Hill, and not one of the far-off little rooms in the boys' wing. I am sure he would have had jellies. and Charlotte's roost instead of mere broth, chicken and batter pudding, as fell to his lot. And when he was gone, in the carriage, mind you, not in the gig driven by a groom, I am sure Mrs. Newcombe would have written a letter that night to Her Grace, the Duchess Dowager, his mamma, full of praise of the dear child, his graciousness, his beauty, and his wit, and declaring that she must love him henceforth and for ever after as a son of her own.
You toss down the page with scorn and say, It is not true. Human nature is not so bad as this cynic would have it to be. You would make no difference between the rich and the poor. Be it so, you would not, but own that your next-door neighbour would. Nor is this, dear madam, addressed to you. No, no, we are not so rude as to talk about you to your face. But if we may not speak of the lady who has just left the room, what is to become of conversation and society?
We forbear to describe the meeting between the colonel and his son, the pretty boy from whom he had parted more than seven years before, with such pangs of heart, and of whom he had thought ever since with such a constant longing affection. Half an hour after the father left the boy, And in his grief and loneliness was rowing back to shore. Clive was at play with a dozen of other children on the sunny deck of the ship. When two bells rang for their dinner, they were all hurrying to the cuddy-table and busy over their meal. What a sad repast their parents had that day! How their hearts followed the careless young one's home across the great ocean! Mother's prayers go with them. Strong men, Alone on their knees, with streaming eyes and broken accents, implore heaven for those little ones, who were prattling at their sides but a few hours since.
Long after they are gone, careless and happy, recollections of the sweet past rise up and smite those who remain. The flowers they had planted in their little gardens, the toys they played with, The little vacant cribs they slept in as father's eyes looked blessings down on them. Most of us who have passed a couple of score of years in the world have had such sights as these to move us, and those who have will think none the worse of my worthy colonel, for his tender and faithful heart. With that fidelity which was an instinct of his nature, this brave man thought ever of his absent child. and longed after him. He never forsook the native servants and nurses who had had charge of the child, but endowed them with money sufficient—and indeed little was wanted by people of that frugal race—to make all their future lives comfortable.
No friends went to Europe, nor ship departed, but Newcombe sent presents and remembrances to the boy, and costly tokens of his love and thanks To all who were kind to his son. What a strange pathos seems to me to accompany all our Indian story. Besides that official history which fills gazettes, and embroideres banners with names of victory, which gives moralists and enemies cause to cry out at English rapine, and enables patriots to boast of invincible British valour, besides the splendour and conquest, the wealth and glory, The crowned ambition, the conquered danger, the vast prize, and the blood freely shed in winning it. Should not one remember the tears, too? Besides the lives of myriads of British men, conquering on a hundred fields, from Placis to Miany, and bathing them crurore nostro, think of the women, and the tribute which they perforce must pay to those victorious achievements.
Scarce a soldier goes to yonder shores, but leaves a home and grief in it behind him. The lords of the subject province find wives there, but their children cannot live on the soil. The parents bring their children to the shore, and part from them. The family must be broken up. Keep the flowers of your home beyond a certain time, and the sickening buds wither and die. In America, it is from the breast of a poor slave that a child is taken. In India, it is from the wife, and from under the palace, of a splendid proconsul.
The experience of this grief made Newcombe's naturally kind heart only the more tender, and hence he had a weakness for children, which made him the laughing-stock of old maids, old bachelors, and sensible persons. But the darling of all nurseries, to whose little inhabitants he was uniformly kind. Were they the collector's progeny in their palanquins, or the sergeant's children tumbling about the cantonment, or the dusky little heathens in the huts of his servants round his gate?
It is known that there is no part of the world where ladies are more fascinating than in British India. Perhaps the warmth of the sun kindles flames in the hearts of both sexes, which would probably beat quite coolly in their native air. Else, why should Miss Brown be engaged ten days after her landing at Calcutta? Or why should Miss Smith have half a dozen proposals before she has been a week at the station? And it is not only bachelors on whom the young ladies confer their affections. They will take widowers without any difficulty. And a man so generally liked as Major Newcombe, with such a good character, with a private fortune of his own, so chivalrous, generous, good-looking, eligible in a word, you may be sure would have found a wife easily enough had he any mind for replacing the late Mrs.
Casey. The Colonel, as has been stated, had an Indian chum or companion with whom he shared his lodgings. And from many jocular remarks of this latter gentleman, who loved good jokes and uttered not a few, I could gather that the honest widower, Colonel Newcombe, had been often tempted to alter his condition, and that the Indian ladies had tried numberless attacks upon his bereaved heart, and devised endless schemes of carrying it by assault, treason, or other mode of capture. Mrs. Casey, his defunct wife, had overcome it by sheer pity and helplessness. He had found her so friendless that he took her into the vacant place and installed her there as he would have received a traveller into his bungalow.
He divided his meal with her, and made her welcome to his best. I believe Tom Newcombe married her, sly Mr. Binney used to say, in order that he might have permission to pay her milliner's bills. And in this way he was amply gratified until the day of her death. A feeble miniature of the lady, with yellow ringlets and a guitar, hung over the mantelpiece of the colonel's bedchamber, where I have often seen that work of art. And subsequently, when he and Mr. Binney took a house, there was hung up in the spare bedroom a companion portrait to the miniature, that of the colonel's predecessor, Jack Casey, who in life, Used to fling plates at his Emma's head, and who perished from a fatal attachment to the bottle.
I am inclined to think that Colonel Newcombe was not much cast down by the loss of his wife, and that they lived but indifferently together. Clive used to say in his artless way that his father scarcely ever mentioned his mother's name, and no doubt the union was not happy, although Newcombe continued piously to acknowledge it. Long after death had brought it to a termination, by constant benefactions and remembrances to the departed ladies' kindred. Those widows or virgins who endeavoured to fill Emma's place found the door of Newcombe's heart fast and barred, and assailed it within vain. Miss Billing sat down before it with her piano, and as the colonel was a practitioner on the flute, hoped to make all life one harmonious duet with him.
But she played her most brilliant sonatas and variations in vain, and, as everybody knows, subsequently carried her grand piano to Lieutenant and Adjutant Hodgkin's house, whose name she now bears. The lovely widow Wilkins, with two darling little children, stopped at Newcombe's hospitable house on her way to Calcutta, and it was thought she might never leave it. But her kind host, as was his wont, Crammed her children with presents and good things, consoled and entertained the fair widow, and one morning, after she had remained three months at the station, the colonels, palanquins, and bearers made their appearance, and Elvira Wilkins went away weeping as a widow should. Why did she abuse Newcombe ever after at Calcutta, Bath, Cheltenham, and wherever she went, calling him selfish, pompous, quixotic?
And a bohoader? I could mention half a dozen other names of ladies of most respectable families connected with Leadenhall Street, who, according to Colonel Newcomb's chum, that wicked Mr. Binney, had all conspired more or less to give Clive Newcomb a stepmother. But he had had an unlucky experience in his own case, and thought within himself, No, I won't give Clive a stepmother. As heaven has taken his own mother from him, why, I must try to be father and mother too to the lad. He kept the child as long as ever the climate would allow of his remaining, and then sent him home. Then his aim was to save money for the youngster. He was of a nature so uncontrollably generous that, to be sure, he spent five rupees where another would save them, and make a fine show besides.
But it is not a man's gifts or hospitalities that generally injure his fortune. It is on themselves that prodigals spend most, and as Newcombe had no personal extravagances and the smallest selfish wants, could live almost as frugally as a Hindu, kept his horses not to race but to ride, wore his old clothes and uniforms until they were the laughter of his regiment, did not care for show, and had no longer an extravagant wife, he managed to lay by considerably out of his liberal allowances, and to find himself and Clive growing richer every year.
When Clive has had five or six years at school—that was his scheme—he will be a fine scholar, and have at least as much classical learning as a gentleman in the world need possess. Then I will go to England. And we will pass three or four years together, in which he will learn to be intimate with me, and, I hope, to like me. I shall be his pupil for Latin and Greek, and try and make up for lost time. I know there is nothing like a knowledge of the classics to give a man good breeding. Ingenuas didicice fideliter artes immoluent mores, nec sinuisi feros. I shall be able to help him with my knowledge of the world, and to keep him out of the way of sharpers and a pack of rogues who commonly infest young men.
I will make myself his companion, and pretend to know superiority, for indeed isn't he my superior? Of course he is, with his advantages. He hasn't been an idle young scamp as I was, and we will travel together, first through England, Scotland, and Ireland. For every man should know his own country, and then we will make the grand tour. Then, by the time he is 18, he will be able to choose his profession. He can go into the army, and emulate the glorious man after whom I named him, or, if he prefers the church, or the law, they are open to him, and when he goes to the university, by which time I shall be in all probability a major-general, I can come back to India for a few years, and return by the time he has a wife and a home for his old father.
Or if I die, I shall have done the best for him, and my boy will be left with the best education, a tolerable small fortune, and the blessing of his old father.
Such were the plans of our kind schemer. How fondly he dwelt on them, how affectionately he wrote of them to his boy. How he read books of travels, and looked over the maps of Europe, and said, Rome, sir, glorious Rome. It won't be very long, Major, before my boy and I see the Colosseum, and kiss the Pope's toe. We shall go up the Rhine to Switzerland, and over the Saint-Plon, the work of the great Napoleon. By Jove, sir, think of the Turks before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing 80,000 of them off the face of the earth. How my boy will rejoice in the picture-galleries there, and in Prince Eugene's prints. You know, I suppose, that Prince Eugene, one of the greatest generals in the world, was also one of the greatest lovers of the fine arts.
Ingenuos did he see. Hey, doctor? You know the rest. Emollient Moret's neck. Emollient Moret's colonel, said Dr. McTaggart. who perhaps was too canny to correct the commanding officer's latin. "'Do ye know that Prince Eugène was about as savage a turk as Iver was? Have ye never read the memories of the Prince de Lyon?' "'Well, he was a great cavalry officer,' answers the colonel, "'and he left a great collection of prints. That you know. How Clive will delight in them. The boy's talent for drawing is wonderful, sir, wonderful!' He sent me a picture of our old school. The very actual thing, sir. The cloisters, the school, the head-gown boy going in with the rods, and the doctor himself. It would make you die of laughing.
He regaled the ladies of the regiment with Clive's letters, and those of Miss Honeyman, which contained an account of the boy. He even bored some of his bearers with this prattle, and sporting young men would give or take odds, That the Colonel would mention Clive's name once before five minutes, three times in ten minutes, twenty-five times in the course of dinner, and so on. But they who laughed at the Colonel laughed very kindly, and everybody who knew him loved him—everybody, that is, who loved modesty and generosity and honor. At last the happy time came for which the kind father had been longing more passionately than any prisoner for liberty or schoolboy for holiday. Colonel Newcomb had taken leave of his regiment, leaving Major Tomkinson, nothing loath, in command.
He has traveled to Calcutta, and the Commander-in-Chief, in general orders, has announced that in giving to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Newcomb, C.B., of the Bengal Cavalry, leave for the first time, after no less than thirty-four years' absence from home, He, Sir George Hustler, cannot refrain from expressing his sense of the great and meritorious services of this most distinguished officer, who has left his regiment in a state of the highest discipline and efficiency. And now the ship has sailed, the voyage is over, and once more, after so many long years, the honest soldier's foot is on his native shore.
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6 06 - Chapter 6: Newcome Brothers 28:02
The Newcombes by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter Six. Newcombe Brothers.
Besides his own boy, whom he worshipped, this kind colonel had a score, at least, of adopted children, to whom he chose to stand in the light of a father, He was forever whirling away in post-chaises to this school and that to see Jack Brown's boys of the cavalry, or Mrs. Smith's girls of the civil service, or poor Tom Hicks's orphan, who had nobody to look after him now that the cholera had carried off Tom and his wife, too. On board the ship in which he returned from Calcutta were a dozen of little children of both sexes, some of whom he actually escorted to their friends before he visited his own, and though his heart was longing for his boy at Greyfriars. The children at the school's scene, and largely rewarded out of his bounty, his loose white trousers had great pockets, always heavy with gold and silver, which he jingled when he was not pulling his moustachios, To see the way in which he tipped children made one almost long to be a boy again.
And when he had visited Miss Pinkerton's establishment, or Dr. Ramshorn's adjoining academy at Chiswick, and seen little Tom Davis or little Fanny Holmes, the honest fellow would come home and write off straightaway a long letter to Tom's or Fanny's parents, far away in the Indian country, whose hearts he made happy by his accounts of their children, as he had delighted the children themselves by his affection and bounty. All the apple and orange women, especially such as had babies as well as lollipops at their stalls, all the street-sweepers on the road between Nero's and the Oriental knew him, and were his pensioners. His brothers, in Threadneedle Street, cast up their eyes at the checks which he drew.
One of the little people, of whom the kind Newcombe had taken charge, luckily dwelt near Portsmouth. And when the faithful Colonel consigned Miss Phipps to her grandmother, Mrs. Admiral Phipps, at Southampton, Miss Phipps clung to her guardian, and with tears and howls was torn away from him. Not until her maiden aunts had consoled her with strawberries, which she never before had tasted, was the little Indian comforted for the departure of her dear Colonel. Master Cox, Tom Cox's boy, of the native infantry, had to be carried asleep from the George to the Mail that night. Master Cox woke up at the dawn wondering as the coach passed through the pleasant green roads of Bromley. The good gentleman consigned the little chap to his uncle, Dr.
Cox, Bloomsbury Square, before he went to his own quarters, and then on the errand on which his fond heart was bent. He had written to his brothers from Portsmouth announcing his arrival, and three words to Clive conveying the same intelligence. The letter was served to the boy along with one bowl of tea and one buttered roll, of eighty such which were distributed to fourscore other boys, boarders of the same house with our young friend. How the lad's face must have flushed, and his eyes brightened when he read the news! When the master of the house, the Reverend Mr. Popkinson came into the wrong room with a good-natured face and said, Newcombe, you're wanted. He knows who is come. He does not heed that notorious bruiser, Old Hodge, who roars out, Confound you, Newcombe!
I'll give it you for upsetting your tea over my new trousers. He runs to the room where the stranger is waiting for him. We will shut the door, if you please, upon that sea. If Clive had not been as fine and handsome a young lad as any in that school or country, no doubt his fond father would have been just as well pleased and endowed him with a hundred fanciful graces. But in truth, in looks and manners, he was everything which his parent could desire, and I hope the artist who illustrates this work will take care to do justice to his portrait. Mr. Clive himself, let that painter be assured, will not be too well pleased if his countenance and figure do not receive proper attention. He is not yet endowed with those splendid mustachios and whiskers which he has himself subsequently depicted, but he is the picture of health, strength, activity, and good humor.
He has a good forehead, shaded with a quantity of waving light hair, A complexion which ladies might envy, a mouth which seems accustomed to laughing, and a pair of blue eyes that sparkle with intelligence and frank kindness. No wonder the pleased father cannot refrain from looking at him. He is, in a word, just such a youth as has a right to be the hero of a novel. The bell rings for second school, and Mr. Popkinson, arrayed in cap and gown, comes in to shake Colonel Newcomb by the hand, and to say he supposes it to be a holiday for Newcomb that day. He does not say a word about Clive's scrape of the day before, and that awful row in the bedrooms, where the lad and three others were discovered making a supper off a pork pie and two bottles of prime old port from the Red Cow Public House in Greyfriars Lane.
When the bell has done ringing, and all these busy little bees have swarmed into their hive, there is a solitude in the place. The colonel and his son walk the playground together, that gravelly flat, as destitute of herbage as the Arabian desert, but nevertheless in the language of the place called the Green. They walk the green, and they pace the cloisters, and Clive shows his father his own name of Thomas Newcombe, carved upon one of the arches forty years ago. As they talk, the boy gives side-long glances at his new friend, and wonders at the Colonel's loose trousers, long mustachios, and yellow face. He looks very odd, Clive thinks, very odd and very kind, and he looks like a gentleman, every inch of him.
Not like Martin's father, who came to see his son lately in high lows and a shocking bad hat, and actually flung coppers amongst the boys for a scramble. He bursts out a-laughing at the exquisitely ludicrous idea of a gentleman of his fashion scrambling for coppers. And now, enjoining the boy to be ready against his return, and you may be sure Mr. Clive was on the lookout long before his sire appeared, the colonel whirled away in his cab to the city to shake hands with his brothers, whom he had not seen since they were demure little men in blue jackets, under charge of a serious tutor. He rushed through the clerks and the banking house. He broke into the parlour where the lords of the establishment were seated.
He astonished those trim, quiet gentlemen by the warmth of his greeting, by the vigor of his handshake, and the loud, high tones of his voice, which penetrated the glass walls of the parlor, and might actually be heard by the busy clerks in the hall without. He knew Brian from Hobson at once, that unlucky little accident in the go-cart having left its mark forever on the nose of Sir Brian Newcombe, the elder of the twins. Sir Brian had a bald head and light hair, a short whisker cut to his cheek, a buff waistcoat, very neat boots, and hands. He looked like the portrait of a gentleman at the exhibition, as the worthy is represented, Dignified in attitude, bland, smiling, and statesmanlike, sitting at a table, unsealing letters with a dispatch-box and a silver inkstand before him, a column and a scarlet curtain behind, and a park in the distance with a great thunderstorm lowering in the sky.
Such a portrait, in fact, hangs over the great sideboard at Newcombe to this day. and above the three great silver waiters which the gratitude of his many companies has presented to their respected director and chairman. In face, Hobson Newcombe, Esquire, was like his elder brother, but was more portly in person. He allowed his red whiskers to grow wherever nature had planted them, on his cheeks and under his chin. He wore thick shoes with nails in them, or natty round-toed boots with tight trousers and a single strap. He affected the country gentleman in his appearance. His hat had a broad brim, and the ample pockets of his cutaway coat were never destitute of agricultural produce, samples of beans or corn which he used to bite and chew, even on change, or a whiplash, or balls for horses.
In fine, he was a good old country gentleman. If it was fine in Threadneedle Street, he would say it was good weather for the Hay. If it rained, the country wanted rain. If it was frosty... No hunting today, Tomkins, my boy, and so forth. As he rode from Gryanston Square to the city, you would take him, and he was pleased to be so taken, for a jolly country squire. He was a better man of business than his more solemn and stately brother, at whom he laughed in his jocular way, and he said rightly that a gentleman must get up very early in the morning who wanted to take him in. The colonel breaks into the sanctum of these worthy gentlemen, and each receives him in a manner constant with his peculiar nature.
Sir Brian regretted that Lady Anne was away from London, being at Brighton with the children, who were all ill of the measles. Hobson said, "'Maria can't treat you to such good company as my lady could give you. But when will you take a day and come dine with us? Let's see. Today's Wednesday. Tomorrow we've a party. No, we're engaged.' He meant that his table was full, and that he did not care to crowd it, but there was no use in imparting this circumstance to the Colonel. "'Friday we dine at Judge Budge's.' "'Queer name, Judge Bodge, ain't it? Saturday I'm going down to Marblehead to look after the hay. Come on Monday, Tom, and I'll introduce you to the missus and the younguns.' "'I will bring Clive,' says Colonel Newcomb, rather disturbed at this reception.
After his illness my sister-in-law was very kind to him. "'No, hang it, don't bring boys. There's no good in boys. They stop the talk downstairs, and the ladies don't want him in the drawing room.' Send him to dine with the children on Sunday, if you like, and come along with me to Marblehead, and I'll show you such a crop of hay as will make your eyes open. Are you fond of farming? I have not seen my boy for years, says the Colonel. I had rather pass Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some day we will go to Marblehead together. Well, an offer's an offer. I don't know any pleasanter thing than getting out of this confounded city and smelling the hedges and looking at the crops coming up and passing the Sunday in quiet.
And his own tastes being thus agricultural, the honest gentleman thought that everybody else must delight in the same recreation. In the winter, I hope we shall see you at Newcombe, says the elder brother, blandly smiling. "'I can't give you any tiger-shooting, but I'll promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our jungle,' and he laughed very gently at this mild sally. The colonel gave him a queer look. "'I shall be at Newcombe before the winter. I shall be there, please God, before many days are over.' "'Indeed,' says the baronet, with an air of great surprise. "'You are going down to look at the cradle of our race. I believe the Newcombes were there before the conqueror.' It was but a village in our grandfather's time, and it is an immense flourishing town now, for which I hope to get, I expect to get, a charter.
Do you? says the Colonel. I'm going down there to see a relation. A relation? What relatives have we there? cries the Baronet. My children, with the exception of Barnes. Barnes, this is your uncle, Colonel Thomas Newcomb. I have great... Pleasure, brother, in introducing you to my eldest son. A fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and arrayed in the very height of fashion, made his appearance at this juncture in the parlour, and returned Colonel Newcombe's greeting with a smiling acknowledgement of his own. "'Very happy to see you, I'm sure,' said the young man. "'You find London very much changed since you were here. Very good time to come, the very full of the season.' Poor Thomas Newcomb was quite abashed by this strange reception.
Here was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was a beardless young Sprig, who patronised him, and vouchsafed to ask whether he found London was changed. "'I don't know whether it's changed,' says the Colonel, biting his nails. "'I know it's not what I expected to find it.' "'To-day it's really hot as I should think it must be in India,' says young Mr. Barnes-Newcomb. "'Hot,' says the Colonel, with a grin. "'It seems to me you are all cool enough here.' "'Just what Sir Thomas the Boot said, sir,' says Barnes, turning round to his father. "'Don't you remember when he came home from Bombay? I recollect his saying at Lady Featherstone's, "'One deuced-hot night, as it seemed to us,' I recollect his saying that he felt quite old.
Did you know him in India, Colonel Newcombe? He's liked the horse guards, but he's hated in his regiment. Colonel Newcombe here growled a wish regarding the ultimate fate of Sir Thomas de Booth, which we trust may never be realized by that distinguished cavalry officer. My brother says he's going to Newcombe Barnes next week. said the baronet, wishing to make the conversation more interesting to the newly-arrived colonel. He was saying so just when you came in, and I was asking him what took him there. "'Did you ever hear of Sarah Mason?' says the colonel. "'Really, I never did,' the baronet answered. "'Sarah Mason? No, upon my word, I don't think I ever did,' said the young man. "'Well, that's a pity, too,' the colonel said, with a sneer.
Mrs. Mason is a relation of yours, at least by marriage. She is my aunt or cousin. I used to call her aunt, and she and my father and mother all worked in the same mill at Newcombe together. "'I remember! God bless my soul! I remember now!' cried the baronet. "'We pay her forty pound a year on your account. Don't you know, brother? Look to Colonel Newcombe's account. I recollect the name quite well.' "'But I thought she had been your nurse, and an old servant of my father's.' "'So she was my nurse, and an old servant of my father's,' answered the Colonel. "'But she was my mother's cousin, too, and very lucky was my mother to have such a servant, or to have a servant at all. There is not in the whole world a more faithful creature or a better woman.' Mr.
Hobson rather enjoyed his brother's perplexity, and to see when the baronet rode the high horse how he came down sometimes. "'I'm sure it does you very great credit,' gasped the courtly head of the firm, "'to remember a—a humble friend and a connection of our father so well.' "'I think, brother, you might have recollected her, too,' the colonel growled out." His face was blushing. He was quite angry and hurt at what seemed to him Sir Brian's hardness of heart. "'Pardon me if I don't see the necessity,' said Sir Brian. "'I have no relationship with Mrs. Mason, and do not remember ever having seen her. Can I do anything for you, brother? Can I be useful to you in any way? Pray command me and Barnes here, who, after city hours, would be delighted if he can be serviceable to you.' I am hailed to this counter all the morning, and to the House of Commons all night.
I will be with you in one moment, Mr. Quilter. Good-bye, my dear Curdle. How well India has agreed with you! How young you look! The hot winds are nothing to what we endure in Parliament. Hobson, in a low voice, you saw that about him, that power of attorney. And, and, and will call here at twelve about that. I'm sorry, I must say goodbye. It seems so hard after not meeting for so many years. Very, said the Colonel. Mind and send for me whenever you want me now. Oh, of course, said the elder brother, and thought, when will that ever be? Lady Anne would be too delighted at hearing of your arrival. Give my love to Clive, a remarkable fine boy, Clive. Good morning. And the baronet was gone, and his bald head might presently be seen alongside of Mr.
Quilter's confidential grey pole, both of their faces turned into an immense ledger. Mr. Hobson accompanied the colonel to the door, and shook him cordially by the hand as he got into his cab. The man asked whither he should drive, and poor Newcombe hardly knew where he was or whither he should go. Drive! Oh, oh, oh, damn, drive me anywhere away from this place, was all he could say, and very likely the cabman thought he was a disappointed debtor who had asked in vain to renew a bill. In fact, Thomas Newcombe had overdrawn his little account. There was no such balance of affection in that bank of his brother's as the simple creature had expected to find there. When he was gone, Sir Brian went back to his parlour, where sate young Barnes pusing the paper.
My revered uncle seems to have brought back a quantity of cayenne pepper from India, sir, he said to his father. "'He seems a very kind-hearted, simple man,' the baronet said. "'Eccentric, but he has been more than thirty years away from home. Of course you will call upon him tomorrow morning. Do everything you can to make him comfortable. Whom would he like to meet at dinner? I will ask some of the direction. Ask him, Barnes, for next Wednesday or Saturday. No, Saturday I dine with the speaker, but see that every attention is paid him.' Does he intend to have our relation up to town, sir? I should like to meet Mrs. Mason, of all things. A venerable washerwoman, I dare say, or perhaps keeps a public-house, simpered out young Barnes.
Silence, Barnes! You jest at everything, you young men do. You do! Colonel Newcombe's affection for his old nurse does him the greatest honour, said the baronet, who really meant what he said. And I hope my mother will have her to stay a good deal at Newcombe. I am sure she must have been a washerwoman, and mangled my uncle in early life. His costume struck me with respectful astonishment. He disdains the use of straps to his trousers, and is seemingly unacquainted with gloves. If he had died in India, would my late aunt have had to perish on a funeral pile? Here Mr. Quilter, entering with a heap of bills, put an end to these sarcastic remarks, and young Newcombe, applying himself to his business, of which he was a perfect master, forgot about his uncle till after city hours, when he entertained some young gentleman of Bayes' Club with an account of his newly-arrived relative.
Towards the city, whither he wended his way whatever had been the bowl or dissipation of the night before, young Barnes-Newcomb might be seen walking every morning, resolutely and swiftly, with his neat umbrella. As he passed Charing Cross on his way westwards, his little boots trailed slowly over the pavement, his head hung languid, bending lower still, and smiling with faded sweetness as he doffed his hat and saluted a passing carriage. His umbrella trailed after him. Not a dandy on all the pall-mall pavements seemed to have less to do than he. Heaviside, a large young officer of the household troops, old Sir Thomas the Boots, and Horace Foggy, whom everyone knows, are in the window of Bayses, yawning as wildly as that window itself.
Horses under the charge of men in red jackets are pacing up and down St. James's Street. Cabmen on the stand are regaling with beer. Gentlemen with grooms behind them pass towards the park. Great Dowager Baruches roll along, emblazoned with coronets and driven by coachmen in silvery wigs. Wistful provincials gaze in at the clubs. Foreigners chatter and show their teeth, and look at the ladies in the carriages, and smoke and spit refreshingly round about. Policeman X slouches along the pavement. It is five o'clock, the noon, in Pall Mall. Here's little Newcom coming, says Mr. Horace Foggey. He and the Muffin Man generally make their appearance in public together. Dash, little prig, says Sir Thomas de Boots.
Why the dash that they ever let him in here? If I hadn't been in India by dash, he would have been blackballed 20 times over by dash. Only Sir Thomas used words far more terrific than Dash, for this distinguished cavalry officer swore very freely. "'He amuses me. He's such a mischievous little devil,' says good-natured Charlie Heavyside. "'It takes very little to amuse you,' remarks Foggy. "'You don't, Foggy,' answers Charlie. "'I know every one of your damned old stories that are as old as my grandmother.' "'How do you do, Barney?' Enter Barnes Newcomb. "'How are the three per cents, you little beggar? I wish you'd do me a bit of stiff, and just tell your father if I may overdraw my account I'll vote with him, and if I don't.' Barnes orders Absenton water and drinks.
Heavyside resuming his elegant raillery. "'I say, Barnes, your name's Barney, and you're a banker. You must be a little Jew, hey?' "'Well, how much will you do my little pill for?' "'Do hee-haw in the House of Commons, Heavyside,' says the young man with a languid air. "'That's your place. You're returned for it. Captain, the Honourable Charles Heavyside, is a member of the Legislature, and eminent in the House for asinine imitations which delight his own and confuse the other party. Don't pray here. I hate the shop out of shop-hours.' Dash the little puppy, growls Sir the Boots, swelling in his waistband. What do they say about the Russians in the city? says Horace Fogge, who has been in the diplomatic service.
Has the fleet left Kronstadt, or has it not? How should I know? asks Barney. Ain't it all in the evening paper? That is very uncomfortable news from India, General, resumes Fogge. There's Lady Doddington's carriage, how well she looks, that movement of Ranjit Singh on Peshawar, that frite on the Irrawaddy. It looks doocid queer, let me tell you, and the Penguin is not the man to be Governor General of India in a time of difficulty. And Hustler's not the man to be Commander in Chief. Dashd old fool never lived. A dashd old psalm singing blundering old woman. Says Sir Thomas, who wanted the command himself. You ain't in the psalm-singing line, Sir Thomas, says Mr. Barnes. Quite the contrary. In fact, Sir, the Boots and his youth used to sing with the Duke of York, and even against Captain Costigan, but was beaten by that superior Bacchanalian artist.
Sir Thomas looks as if to ask, What the dash is that to you? But wanting still to go to India again, and knowing how strong the Newcombs are in Leadenhall Street, he thinks it necessary to be civil to the young cub, and swallows his wrath once more into his waistband. I've got an uncle come home from India. Upon my word, I have. Says Barnes Newcombe. That is why I am so exhausted. I am going to buy him a pair of gloves, number 14, and I want a tailor for him. Not a young man's tailor. Fogies tailor, rather. I take my father's, but he has all his things made in the country. All. In the borough, you know. He's a public man. Is Colonel Newcombe of the Bengal Cavalry your uncle? asked Sir Thomas the Boots.
Yes. Will you come and meet him at dinner next Wednesday week, Sir Thomas? Aunt Foggy, you come. You know you like a good dinner. You don't know anything against my uncle, do you, Sir Thomas? Have I any brahminical cousins? Need we be ashamed of him? I'll tell you what, young man. If you were more like him, it wouldn't hurt you. He's an odd man. They call him Don Quixote in India. I suppose you've read Don Quixote. "'Never heard of it upon my word. And why do you wish I should be more like him?' "'I don't wish to be like him at all, thank you.' "'Why, because he is one of the bravest officers that ever lived,' roared out the old soldier. "'Because he is one of the kindest fellows. Because he gives himself no dashed airs, although he has reason to be proud who he chose.
That's why, Mr. Newcombe.' "'A tupper for you, Barney, my boy!' Remarks Charles Heaviside, as the indignant general walks away gobbling and red. Barney calmly drinks the remains of his absinthe. "'I don't know what the old muff means,' he says innocently, when he has finished his bitter draught. "'He's always flying out at me, the old turkey-cock. He quarrels with my play at whist, the old idiot, and can no more play than an old baby.' He pretends to teach me billiards, and I'll give him fifteen-and-twenty and beat his old head off. Why do they let such fellows into clubs? Let's have a game at PK till dinner, Heavyside. Hello! That's my uncle, that tall man with the moustachios and the short trousers, walking with that boy of his.
I dare say they are going to dine in Covent Garden and going to the play. How do you do, Nunky? And so the worthy pair went up to the card-room, where they sate at Piquet until the hour of sunset and dinner arrived.
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7 07 - Chapter 7: In which Mr. Clive's School-days are over 23:00
Our good colonel had luckily to look forward to a more pleasant meeting with his son than that unfortunate interview with his other near relatives. He dismissed his cab at Ludgate Hill, and walked thence by the dismal precincts of Newgate, and across the muddy pavement of Smithfield, on his way back to the old school where his son was, a way which he had trodden many a time in his own early days. There was Cistercian Street, and the red cow of his youth. There was the quaint old Greyfriars Square, with its blackened trees and gardens, surrounded by ancient houses of the build of the last century, now slumbering like pensioners in the sunshine. Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic building, and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet square or passing from one dark arch to another.
The boarding houses of the school were situated in the square. Hard by the more ancient buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the schoolboys' windows. Their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely with the quiet of those old men creeping along in their black gowns under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm. There was Thomas Newcomb, arrived at the middle of life, standing between the shouting boys and the tottering seniors, and in a situation to moralize upon both had not his son Clive, who has espied him from within Mr.
Hopkinson's, or let us say at once, Hopkey's house, come jumping down the steps to greet his sire. Clive was dressed in his very best. Not one of those four hundred young gentlemen had a better figure, a better tailor, or a neater boot. School fellows, grinning through the bars, envied him as he walked away. Senior boys made remarks on Colonel Newcomb's loose clothes and long mustachios, his brown hands and unbrushed hat. The colonel was smoking a cheroot as he walked, and the gigantic smith, the cock of the school, who happened to be looking majestically out of window, was pleased to say that he thought Newcomb's governor was a fine, manly-looking fellow. "'Tell me about your uncles, Clive,' said the colonel, as they walked on arm in arm.
"'What about them, sir?' asks the boy. "'I don't think I know much. "'You have been to stay with them. "'You wrote about them. "'Were they kind to you?' "'Oh, yes. "'I suppose they are very kind.' They always tipped me. Only, you know, when I go there I scarcely ever see them. Mr. Newcombe asks me the oftenest, two or three times a quarter when he's in town, and gives me a sovereign regular. Well, he must see you to give you the sovereign, says Clive's father, laughing. The boy blushed, rather. Yes, when it's time to go back to Smithfield on a Sunday night, I go into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it me. But he doesn't speak to me much, you know, and I don't care about going to Bridenstone Square, except for the tip.
Of course, that's important. Because I am made to dine with the children, and they are quite little ones, and a great cross-French governess, who is always crying and shrieking after them and finding fault with them. My uncle generally has his dinner parties on Saturday, or goes out, and aunt gives me ten shillings and sends me to the play. That's better fun than a dinner party. Here the lad blushed again. I used, says he, when I was younger, to stand on the stairs and prig things out of the dishes when they came out from dinner, but I'm past that now. Maria, that's my cousin? Used to take the sweet things and give them to the governess. Fancy! She used to put lumps of sugar into her pocket and eat them in the schoolroom.
Uncle Hobson don't live in such good society as Uncle Newcomb. You see, Aunt Hobson, she's very kind, you know, and all that, but I don't think she's what you call comme il faut. Why, how are you to judge? asks the father, amused at the lad's candid prattle. And where does the difference lie? I can't tell you what it is or how it is, the boy answered. Only one can't help seeing the difference. It isn't rank in that. Only somehow there are some men gentlemen and some not, and some women ladies and some not. There's Jones now. The fifth form master. Every man sees he's a gentleman, though he wears ever so old clothes. And there's Mr. Brown, who oils his hair and wears rings and white chokers. My eyes!
Such white chokers! And yet we call him the handsome snob. And so about Aunt Maria. She's very handsome, and she's very finely dressed, only somehow she's not. She's not the ticket, you see. Oh, she's not the ticket, says the Colonel, much amused. Well, what I mean is... But never mind, says the boy. I can't tell you what I mean. I don't like to make fun of her, you know, for after all, she is very kind to me. But Aunt Anne is different, and it seems as if what she says is more natural. And though she has funny ways of her own... Yet somehow she looks grander. And here the lad laughed again. And do you know, I often think that as good a lady as Aunt Anne herself is old Aunt Honeyman at Brighton.
That is, in all essentials, you know. For she is not proud, and she is not vain, and she never says an unkind word behind anybody's back, and she does a great deal of kindness to the poor without appearing to crow over them, you know. And she is not a bit ashamed of letting lodgings or being poor herself, as sometimes I think some of our family. I thought we were going to speak no ill of them, says the Colonel, smiling. Well, it only slipped out unawares, says Clive, laughing. But at Newcombe, when they go on about the Newcombes, and that great ass Barnes Newcombe gives himself his airs, it makes me die of laughing. That time I went down to Newcombe, I went to see old Aunt Sarah, and she told me everything, and showed me the room where my grandfather—you know?
And do you know, I was a little hurt at first, for I thought we were swells till then. And when I came back to school, where perhaps I had been giving myself airs and bragging about Newcombe, why, you know, I thought it was right to tell the fellows. That's a man. said the Colonel with delight, though had he said that's a boy he had spoken more correctly. Indeed, how many men do we know in the world without caring to know who their fathers were? And how many more who wisely do not care to tell us? That's a man, cries the Colonel. Never be ashamed of your father, Clive.
Ashamed of my father? says Clive. Looking up to him and walking on as proud as a peacock. "'I say,' the lad resumed after a pause. "'Say what you say,' said the father. "'Is that all true, what's in the peerage, in the baronetage, "'about Uncle Newcomb and Newcomb, "'about the Newcomb who was burned at Smithfield, "'about the one that was at the Battle of Bosworth, "'and the old, old Newcomb who was barb—' that is, who was surgeon to Edward the Confessor and was killed at Hastings? I am afraid it isn't, and yet I should like it to be true. I think every man would like to come of an ancient and honourable race," said the Colonel in his honest way. As you like your father to be an honourable man, why not your grandfather and his ancestors before him?
But if we can't inherit a good name, At least we can do our best to leave one, my boy. And that is an ambition which, please God, you and I will both hold by.
With this simple talk, the old and young gentlemen beguiled their way, until they came into the western quarter of the town, where the junior member of the firm of Newcombe Brothers had his house, a handsome and roomy mansion in Brinstone Square. Colonel Newcomb was bent on paying a visit to his sister-in-law, and as he knocked at the door where the pair were kept waiting some little time, he could remark through the opened windows of the dining-room that a great table was laid and every preparation made for a feast. "'My brother said he was engaged to dinner to-day,' said the colonel. "'Does Mrs. Newcomb give parties when he is away?' "'She invites all the company,' answered Clive. My uncle never asks anyone without aunt's leave.
The colonel's countenance fell. He has a great dinner and does not ask his own brother, Newcomb thought. Why, if he had come to me in India with all his family, he might have stayed for a year, and I should have been offended if he had gone elsewhere. A hot menial in a red waistcoat came and opened the door, and without waiting for preparatory queries said, Not at home. "'It's my father, John,' said Clive. "'My aunt will see Colonel Newcomb.' "'Mrs. not at home,' said the man. "'Mrs. has gone in carriage.' "'Not at this door. Take them things down the area steps, young man,' bawls out the domestic." This latter speech was addressed to a pastry-cook's boy with a large sugar-temple and many conical papers containing delicacies for dessert.
Mind the heist is here in time, or there'll be a blow-up with you, Gov'nor! And John struggled back, closing the door on the astonished Colonel.
Upon my life, they actually shut the door in our faces, said the poor gentleman. The man is very busy, sir. There's a great dinner. I'm sure my aunt would not refuse you, Clive interposed. She is very kind. I suppose it's different here to what it is in India. Here are the children in the square. Those are the girls in blue. That's the French governess, the one with the moustachios and the yellow parasol. How do you do, Mary? How do you do, Fanny? This is my father. This is your uncle. Mesdemoiselles, je vous défend de parler à qui que ce soit hors du square, screams out the lady of the moustachios. and she strode forward to call back her young charges. The colonel addressed her in very good French.
"'I hope you will permit me to make acquaintance with my nieces,' he said, "'and with their instructress, of whom my son has given me such a favourable account.' "'Hm!' said Mlle Lebrun. Remembering the last fight she and Clive had had together, and a portrait of herself, with enormous whiskers which the young scapegrace had drawn. Monsieur is very good, but one cannot too early inculcate retinue and decorum to young ladies in a country where demoiselles seem forever to forget that they are young ladies of condition. I am forced to keep the eyes of links upon these young persons, otherwise heaven knows what would come to them. Only yesterday, My back is turned for a moment. I cast my eyes on a book, having but little time for literature, monsieur, for literature which I adore.
When a cry makes itself to hear, I turn myself, and what do I see? Mesdemoiselles, your nieces, playing at cricket, with the monsieur Smees, sons of Dr. Smees, young Galapins, monsieur. All this was shrieked. With immense volubility and many actions of the hand and parasol across the square railings to the amused colonel, at whom the little girls peered through the bars. "'Well, my dears, I should like to have a game at cricket with you, too,' says the kind gentleman, reaching them each a brown hand. "'You, monsieur, c'est différent. A man of your age!' "'Salut, monsieur, your uncle, mademoiselle. You conceive, monsieur, that I also must be cautious when I speak to a man so distinguished in a public square.' And she cast down her great eyes and hid those radiant orbs from the colonel.
Meanwhile, Colonel Newcombe, indifferent to the direction which Miss Lebrun's eyes took, whether toward his hat or his boots, was surveying his little nieces with that kind expression which his face always wore when it was turned towards children. "'Have you heard of your uncle in India?' he asked them. "'No,' says Maria. "'Yes,' says Fanny. "'You know mademoiselle said,' mademoiselle at this moment was twittering her fingers and, as it were, kissing them in the direction of a grand barouche that was advancing along the square. "'You know, mademoiselle said that if we were méchant, we should be sent to our uncle in India. I think I should like to go with you.' "'Oh, you silly child!' cries Maria.
"'Yes, I should, if Clive went too,' says little Fanny. "'Behold madame, who arrives from her promenade!' Miss Lebrun exclaimed, and turning round, Colonel Newcomb had the satisfaction of beholding for the first time his sister-in-law. A stout lady, with fair hair and a fine bonnet and police, who knows what were the fine bonnets and polices of the year 1830, was reclining in the barouche, the scarlet-plush integuments of her domestics blazing before and behind her. A pretty little foot was on the cushion opposite to her. Feathers waved in her bonnet. A book was in her lap. An oval portrait of a gentleman reposed on her voluminous bosom. She wore another picture of two darling heads, with pink cheeks and golden hair, on one of her wrists, with many more chains, bracelets, bangles, and knick-knacks.
A pair of dirty gloves marred the splendour of this appearance. A heap of books from the library strewed the back seat of the carriage, and showed that her habits were literary. Springing down from his station behind his mistress, the youth clad in the nether garments of Red Samet discharged thunderclaps on the door of Mrs. Newcomb's house, announcing to the whole square that his mistress had returned to her abode. Since the fort saluted the governor-general at blank, Colonel Newcomb had never heard such a cannonading. Clive, with a queer twinkle of his eyes, ran towards his aunt. She bent over the carriage languidly towards him. She liked him. "'What, you, Clive?' she said. "'How come you away from school of a Thursday, sir?' "'It is a holiday,' says he.
"'My father is come, and he is come to see you.' She bowed her head with an expression of affable surprise and majestic satisfaction. "'Indeed, Clive!' She was good enough to exclaim, and with an air which seemed to say, "'Let him come up and be presented to me.' The honest gentleman stepped forward and took off his hat and bowed, and stood bareheaded. She surveyed him blandly, and with infinite grace put forward one of the pudgy little hands in one of the dirty gloves. "'Can you fancy a twopenny-halfpenny baroness of King Francis's time patronizing Bayard?' Can you imagine Queen Guinevere's lady's maid's lady's maid being affable to Sir Lancelot? I protest there is nothing like the virtue of English women.
You have only arrived today, and you came to see me. That was very kind. N'est-ce pas que c'est toi bon de mousir le colonel, mademoiselle? Mademoiselle Le Brun, Le Colonel Newcomb, mon frere, and my friend, a most superior woman. Was it not kind of Colonel Newcomb to come to see me? Have you had a pleasant voyage? Did you come by St. Helena? Oh, how I envy you seeing the tomb of that great man! Nous parlons de Napoléon, mademoiselle, dont votre père a été le général favori. Oh, Dieu, que n'ai-je pu le voir, interjects mademoiselle. Lui dont parle l'univers, dont mon père m'a si souvent parlé. But this remark passes quite unnoticed by mademoiselle's friend, who continues. Clive, donnez-moi votre bras.
These are two of my girls. My boys are at school. I shall be so glad to introduce them to their uncle. This naughty boy might never have seen you, but that we took him home to Marblehead after the scarlet fever and made him well, didn't we, Clive? And we are all very fond of him, and you must not be jealous of his love for his aunt. We feel that we quite know you through him, and we know that you know us. and we hope you will like us. Do you think your pa will like us, Clive? Or perhaps you will like Lady Anne best? Yes, you have been to her first, of course. Not been? Oh, because she is not in town. Leaning fondly on the arm of Clive, Mademoiselle, standing grouped with the children hard by, while John, with his hat off, stood at the opened door, Mrs.
Newcomb slowly uttered the above remarkable remarks to the colonel on the threshold of her house, which she never asked him to pass. "'If you will come in to us at about ten this evening,' she then said, "'you will find some men, not undistinguished, who honour me of an evening. Perhaps they will be interesting to you, Colonel Newcomb, as you are newly arrived in Europe.' Not men of worldly rank, necessarily, although some of them are amongst the noblest of Europe. But my maxim is that genius is an illustration, and merit is better than any pedigree. You have heard of Professor Bodgers? Count Poskey? Dr. McGuffig, who is called in his native country the Ezekiel of Clackmannon? Mr. Shaluni, the great Irish patriot?
Our papers have told you of him. These and some more have been good enough to promise me a visit tonight. A stranger coming to London could scarcely have a better opportunity of seeing some of our great illustrations of science and literature. And you will meet our own family, not Sir Brian's, who have other society and amusements, but mine. I hope Mr. Newcomb and myself will never forget them. "'We have a few friends at dinner, and now I must go in and consult with Mrs. Hubbard, my housekeeper. Good-bye for the present. Mind, not later than ten, as Mr. Newcome must be up betimes in the morning, and our parties break up early. When Clive is a little older, I dare say we shall see him, too. Good-bye.' And again the colonel was favoured with a shake of the glove.
And the lady and her suite sailed up the stair and passed in at the door. She had not the faintest idea but that the hospitality which she was offering to her kinsmen was of the most cordial and pleasant kind. She fancied everything she did was perfectly right and graceful. She invited her husband's clerks to come through the rain at ten o'clock from Kentish Town. She asked artists to bring their sketchbooks from Kensington. or luckless pianists to trudge with their music from Brompton. She rewarded them with a smile and a cup of tea, and thought they were made happy by her condescension. If, after two or three of these delightful evenings, they ceased to attend her receptions, she shook her little flaxen head and sadly intimated that Mr.
A was getting into bad courses, or feared that Mr. B found merely intellectual parties too quiet for him. Else What young man in his senses could refuse such entertainment and instruction?
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8 08 - Chapter 8: Mrs. Newcome at Home (a Small Early Party) 46:23
Mrs. Newcomb at Home. A Small Early Party. To push on in the crowd. Every male or female struggler must use his shoulders. If a better place than yours presents itself just beyond your neighbor, elbow him, and take it. Look how a steadily purposed man or woman at court, at a ball or exhibition, wherever there is a competition and a squeeze, gets the best place. The nearest the sovereign is bent on kissing the royal hand. The closest to the grandstand, if minded to go to Ascot. The best view and hearing of the Reverend Mr. Thumpington, when all the town is rushing to hear that exciting divine. The largest quantity of ice, champagne and seltzer, col-part, or other his or her favorite flush pot, if gluttonously minded, at a supper when hundreds of people come empty away.
A woman of the world will marry her daughter and have done with her, get her carriage and be at home and asleep in bed, whilst a timid mamma has still her girl in the nursery or is beseeching the servants in the cloakroom to look for her shawls, with which someone else has whisked away an hour ago. What a man has to do in society is to assert himself. Is there a good place at table? Take it. At the Treasury or the Home Office, ask for it. Do you want to go to a party to which you are not invited? Ask to be asked. Ask A. Ask B. Ask Mrs. C. Ask everybody you know. You will be thought a bore, but you will have your way. What matters if you are considered obtrusive, provided that you obtrude? By pushing steadily, Nine hundred and ninety-nine people in a thousand will yield to you.
Only command persons, and you may be pretty sure that a good number will obey. How well your money will have been laid out, O gentle reader, who purchased this, and taking the maxim to heart, follow it through life. You may be sure of success. If your neighbor's foot obstructs you, stamp on it, and do you suppose he won't take it away?" The proofs of the correctness of the above remarks I show in various members of the Newcomb family. Here was a vulgar little woman, not clever nor pretty especially, meeting Mr. Newcomb casually. She ordered him to marry her, and he obeyed, as he obeyed her and everything else which he chose to order through life. Meeting Colonel Newcomb on the steps of her house, she orders him to come to her evening party.
And though he has not been to an evening party for five and thirty years, though he has not been to bed the night before, though he has no mufti coat except one sent him by Messrs. Stoltz to India in the year 1821, he never once thinks of disobeying Mrs. Newcomb's order, but is actually at her door at five minutes past ten. Having arrayed himself to the wonderment of Clive, and left the boy to talk with his friend and fellow-passenger, Mr. Binney, who has just arrived from Portsmouth, who has dined with him, and who, by previous arrangement, has taken up his quarters at the same hotel. This Stoltzcoat, A blue swallowtail with yellow buttons, now wearing a tinge of their native copper, a very high velvet collar on a level with the tips of the captain's ears, with a high waist, indicated by two lapels, and a pair of buttons high up in the wearer's back.
A white waistcoat and scarlet under-waistcoat, and a pair of the never-failing duck trousers. Complete Thomas Newcomb's costume. Along with the white hat in which we have seen him in the morning, and which was one of two dozen purchased by him some years since that public outcry, Baramtola. We have called him Captain purposely, while speaking of his coat, for he held that rank when the garment came out to him, and having been in the habit of considering it a splendid coat for twelve years past, he has not the least idea of changing his opinion. The Dr. McGuffug, Professor Bodgers, Count Pawsky, and all the lions present at Mrs. Newcomb's reunion that evening were completely eclipsed by Colonel Newcomb.
The worthy soul, who cared not the least about adorning himself, had a handsome diamond brooch of the year 1801, given him by poor Jack Cutler, who was knocked over by his side at Argarm. and wore this ornament in his desk for a thousand days and nights at a time, in his shirt frill, on such parade evenings as he considered Mrs. Newcomb's to be. The splendor of this jewel, and of his flashing buttons, caused all eyes to turn to him. There were many pairs of mustachios present, those of Professor Schnoor, a very corpulent martyr, just escaped from Spandau. and of Maximilian Tranchard, French exile and apostle of liberty, were the only whiskers in the room capable of buying an interest with Colonel Newcombs.
Polish chieftains were at this time so common in London that nobody, except one noble member for Marelebone, once a year, the Lord Mayor, took any interest in them. The general opinion was, That the stranger was the Wallachian Boyar, whose arrival at Mivert's the morning post had just announced. Mrs. Miles, whose delicious every other Wednesdays in Montauk Square, I suppose by some to be rival entertainments to Mrs. Newcomb's alternate Thursdays in Briarstone Square, pinched her daughter Myra, engaged in a polyglot conversation with Ish Noor. Noor Karabassi, the guitarist, and Monsieur Pivier, the celebrated French chess player, to point out the boyer. Myra Miles wished she knew a little Moldavian, not so much that she might speak it, but that she might be heard to speak it.
Mrs. Miles, who had not had the educational advantages of her daughter, simpered up with, Madame Newcomb, pas ici. Votre excellence, nouvel amont, arrive. Avez-vous fait un bon voyage? Je re crois, chez moi, mercredi prochain. Le nord de vous voir, Mademoiselle Mars, ma fille. And Mira, now reinforcing her mama, put an aglifed little oration in French, somewhat to the astonishment of the colonel. Who began to think, however, that perhaps French was the language of the polite world, into which he was now making his very first entree. Mrs. Newcomb had left her place at the door of her drawing room to walk through her rooms with Roman Lawl, the celebrated Indian merchant, otherwise His Excellency Roman Lawl, otherwise His Highness Roman Lawl.
the chief proprietor of the diamond mines in Golcanta. With a claim of three millions and a half upon the East India Company, who smoked his hookah after dinner when the ladies were gone, and in whose honor, for his servants always brought a couple or more of hookahs with them, many English gentlemen made themselves sick, while trying to emulate the same practice. Mr. Newcomb had been obliged to go to bed himself in consequence of the uncontrollable nausea produced by the chillum, and Dr. MacGufford, in hopes of converting his highness, had puffed his till he was as black in the face as the interesting Indian. And now, having hung on his arm, always in the dirty gloves, flirting a fan whilst His Excellency consumed Betel out of a silver box, And having promenaded him, and his turban, and his shawls, and his kin-ba police, and his lacquered mustache, and keen brown face, and opal eyeballs, through her rooms, the hostess came back to her station at the drawing-room door.
As soon as His Excellency saw the Colonel, whom he perfectly well knew, His Highness's princely ear was exchanged for one of the deepest humility. He bowed his head and put his two hands before his eyes, and came creeping towards him submissively, to the wonderment of Mrs. Miles, who was yet more astonished when the Moldavian magnate exclaimed in perfectly good English, "'What, Rahman, you hear?' The Roman, still bending and holding his hands before him, uttered a number of rapid sentences in the Hindustani language, which Colonel Newcomb received twirling his mustachios with much hauteur. He turned on his heel rather abruptly and began to speak to Mrs. Newcomb, who smiled and thanked him for coming on his first night after his return.
The Colonel said, To whose house should he first come but to his brother's? How Mrs. Newcomb wished she could have had room for him at dinner. And there was room after all, for Mr. Shaluni was detained at the house. The most interesting conversation. The Indian prince was so intelligent. The Indian what? asked Colonel Newcomb. The heathen gentleman had gone off, and was seated by one of the handsomest young women in the room, whose fair face was turned towards him, whose blond ringlets touched his shoulder, and who was listening to him as eagerly as Desdemona listened to Othello. The colonel's rage was excited as he saw the Indian's behavior. He curled his mustachios up to his eyes in his wrath.
You don't mean that that man calls himself a prince? That a fellow who wouldn't sit down in an officer's presence is? How do you do, Mr. Honeyman? A bonsoir, monsieur. You are very late, Mr. Presley. What, Barnes, is it possible that you do me the honor to come all the way from Mayfair to Marlebone? I thought you young men of fashion never crossed Oxford Street. Colonel Newcomb. This is your nephew. How do you do, sir, says Barnes, surveying the colonel's costume with inward wonder, but without the least outward manifestation of surprise? I suppose you dined here to meet the Black Prince. I came to ask him and my uncle to meet you at dinner on Wednesday. Where's my uncle, ma'am? Your uncle is gone to bed ill.
He smoked one of those hookahs which the Prince brings. And it has made him very unwell indeed, Barnes. How is Lady Anne? Is Lord Q in London? Is your sister better for bright and air? I see your cousin is appointed secretary of legation. Have you good accounts of your aunt, Lady Fanny? Lady Fanny is as well as can be expected, and the baby is going on perfectly well, thank you," Barnes said dryly. And his aunt, obstinately gracious with him, turned away to some other new comet. "'It's interesting, isn't it, sir,' says Barnes, turning to the Colonel, "'to see such union in families. Whenever I come here, my aunt trots out all my relations, and I send a man round in the morning to ask how they all are.
So Uncle Hobson is gone to bed sick with a hookah.' I know there was a deuce of a row made when I smoked at Marblehead. You are promised to us for Wednesday, please. Is there anybody you would like to meet? Not our friend, the rumen? How the girls crowd round him. By gad! A fellow who's rich in London may have the pick of any gal. Not here. Not in this sort of thing. I mean in society, you know," says Barnes confidentially. I've seen the old dowagers crowding round that fellow, and the girls snuggling up to his India rubber face. He's known to have two wives already in India, but, by gag, for a settlement, I believe some of them here would marry. I mean, of the girls in society." But isn't this society?"
asked the Colonel. Oh, of course. It's very good society and that sort of thing. But it's not, you know. "'You understand. I give you my honor. There are not three people in the room one meets anywhere, except the Roman. What is he at home, sir? I know he ain't a prince, you know, any more than I am.' "'I believe he is a rich man now,' said the Colonel. He began from very low beginnings, and odd stories are told about the origin of his fortune.' "'That may be,' says the young man." Of course, as businessmen, that's not our affair. But has he got the fortune? He keeps a large account with us, and, I think, wants to have larger dealings with us still. As one of the family, we may ask you to stand by us and tell us anything you know.
My father has asked him down to Newcomb, and we've taken him up. Wisely or not, I can't say. I think otherwise. But I'm quite young in the house, and, of course, the elders have the chief superintendents. The young man of business had dropped his drawl or his languor, and was speaking quite unaffectedly, good-naturedly and selfishly. Had you talked to him for a week, you could not have made him understand the scorn and loathing with which the colonel regarded him. Here was a young fellow as keen as the oldest curmudgeon. A lad with scarce a beard to his chin that would pursue his bond as rigidly as Shylock. If he is like this at twenty, what will he be at fifty, groaned the colonel. I'd rather Clive were dead than have him such a heartless for writing as this.
And yet the young man was not ungenerous, not untruth-telling, not unserviceable. He thought his life was good enough. It was as good as that of other folks he lived with. You don't suppose he had any misgivings, provided he was in the city early enough in the morning, or slept badly, unless he indulged too freely overnight, or twinges of conscience that his life was misspent. He thought his life a most lucky and reputable one. He had a share in a good business, and felt that he could increase it. Someday he would marry a good match. With a good fortune, meanwhile he could take his pleasure decorously, and sow his wild oats that some of the young Londoners sow them. Not broadcast after the fashion of careless scatterbrained youth, but trimly and neatly, in quiet places, where the crop can come up unobserved, and be taken in without bustle or scandal.
Barnes Newcomb never missed going to church, or dressing for dinner. He never kept a tradesman waiting for his money. He never drank too much, except when other fellows did, and in good company. He never was late for business, or huddled over his toilet, however brief had been his sleep, or severe his headache. In a word, he was as crumpulously whited as any sepulcher in the whole bills of mortality. Whilst young Barnes and his uncle were thus holding parley, a slim gentleman of bland aspect, with a roomy forehead, or what his female admirers called a noble brow, and a neat white neckcloth tied with clerical skill, was surveying Colonel Newcomb through his shining spectacles, and waiting for an opportunity to address him.
The colonel remarked the eagerness with which the gentleman in black regarded him. and asked Mr. Barnes who was the Padre. Mr. Barnes turned his eyeglass towards the spectacles and said, he didn't know any more than the dead. He didn't know two people in the room. The spectacles, nevertheless, made the eyeglass a bow, of which the latter took no sort of cognizance. The spectacles advanced. Mr. Newcomb fell back with a peevish exclamation of, confound the fellow. What is he coming to speak to me for? He did not choose to be addressed by all sorts of persons in all houses. But he of the spectacles, with an expression of delight in his pale blue eyes, and smiles dimpling his countenance, pressed onwards with outstretched hands, and it was towards the Colonel he turned these smiles and friendly salutations.
Did I hear a right, sir, from Mrs. Miles, he said, and have I the honor of speaking to Colonel Newcomb? The same, sir, says the Colonel, at which the other, tearing off a glove of lavender-colored kid, uttered the words, Charles Honeyman, and seized the hand of his brother-in-law. My poor sister's husband, he continued, my own benefactor, Clive's father. How strange are these meetings in the mighty world! How I rejoice to see you, and know you! You are Charles, are you? cries the other. I am very glad indeed to shake you by the hand, honeyman. Clive and I should have beat up your quarters today, but we were busy until dinner-time. You put me in mind of poor Emma, Charles. He added sadly. Emma had not been a good wife to him.
A flighty, silly little woman, who had caused him, when alive, many a night of pain and day of anxiety. "'Poor, poor Emma!' exclaimed the ecclesiastic, casting his eyes towards the chandelier, and passing a white cambric pocket-handkerchief gracefully before them. No man in London understood the ring business or the pocket-handkerchief business better. Or smothered his emotion more beautifully. In the gayest moments, in the giddiest throng of fashion, the thoughts of the past will rise. The departed will be among us still. But this is not the strain we're with to greet the friend newly arrived on our shores. How it rejoices me to behold you in old England! How you must have joyed to see Clive!
Darn the humbug, muttered Barnes, who knew him perfectly well. The fellow was always in the pulpit. The incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel smiled and bowed to him. You do not recognize me, sir. I have had the honor of seeing you in your public capacity in the city, when I have called at the bank, the bearer of my brother-in-law's generous— Never mind that, honeyman, cried the colonel. "'But I do mind,' my dear Colonel," answers Mr. Honeyman. "'I should be a very bad man and a very ungrateful brother if I ever forgot your kindness. "'For God's sakes, leave my kindness alone.' "'He'll never leave it alone as long as he can use it,' muttered Mr. Barnes in his teeth and turning to his uncle. "'May I take you home, sir?
My cab is at the door, and I shall be glad to drive you.'" But the Colonel said he must talk to his brother-in-law for a while, and Mr. Barnes, bowing very respectfully to him, slipped under a dowager's arm in the doorway and retreated silently downstairs. Newcomb was now thrown entirely upon the clergyman, and the latter described the personage as present to the stranger, who was curious to know how the party was composed. Mrs. Newcomb herself would have been pleased had she heard Honeyman's discourse regarding her guests and herself. Charles Honeyman so spoke of most persons that you might fancy they were listening over his shoulder. Such an assemblage of learning, genius, and virtue might well delight and astonish a stranger.
That lady in the red turban with the handsome daughters is Lady Budge. Wife of the eminent judge of that name. Everybody was astonished that he was not made Chief Justice and elevated to the peerage. The only objection, as I have heard confidentially, was on the part of a late sovereign, who said he never could consent to have a peer of the name of Budge. Her ladyship was of humble, I have heard even menial station originally, but becomes her present rank. Dispenses the most elegant hospitality at her mansion in Connett Terrace, and is a pattern as a wife and a mother. The young man talking to her daughter is a young barrister, already becoming celebrated as a contributor to some of our principal reviews.
Who is that cavalry officer in a white waistcoat talking to the Jew with the beard, asked the Colonel. He, he, That cavalry officer is another literary man of celebrity, and by profession an attorney, but he has quitted the law for the muses, and it would appear that the nine are never wooed except by gentlemen with mustachios. Never wrote a verse in my life, says the colonel, laughing and stroking his own. For I remarked so many literary gentlemen with that decoration. The Jew with the beard, as you call him, is E. von Lanken, the eminent oboe-player. The three next gentlemen are Mr. Snee of the Royal Academy, who is shaved, as you perceive, and Mr. Moyes and Mr. Cropper, who are both very hairy about the chin.
At the piano, singing, accompanied by Mademoiselle Lebrun, is Signor Mezzocaldo, the great baritone from Rome. Professor Quartz and Baron Hammerstein celebrated geologists from Germany, are talking with their illustrious confrere, Sir Robert Craxton, in the door. Do you see yonder that stout gentleman with stuff on his shirt? The eloquent Dr. McGuffin of Edinburgh, talking to Dr. Ettore. Who lately escaped from the Inquisition at Rome in the disguise of a washerwoman, after undergoing the question several times, the rack and the thumbscrew. They say that he was to have been burned in the Grand Square the next morning. But between ourselves, my dear Colonel, I mistrust these stories of converts and martyrs.
Did you ever see a more jolly-looking man than Professor Schnoor, who was locked up in Spielberg and got out? Up a chimney, and through a window. Had he waited a few months there, a very few windows he could have passed through. That splendid man in the red fez is Kerbush Pasha, another renegade, I deeply lament to say. A hairdresser from Marseilles, by name Monsieur Farahode, who passed into Egypt and laid aside the tongs for a turban. He is talking with Mr. Palmer. One of our most delightful young poets, and with Desmond O'Tara, son of the late revered Bishop of Bilanifad, who has lately quitted ours for the errors of the Church of Rome. Let me whisper to you that your kinswoman is rather a searcher after what we call here notabilities.
I heard talk of one I knew in better days, of one who was the comrade of my youth and the delight of Oxford. Poor Pidge! A brazen nose, who cut the new decade in my third year, and who, under his present name of Father Bartolo, was to have been here in his capuchin dress, with a beard and bare feet, but I presume he could not get permission from his superior. That is Mr. Huff, the political economist, talking with Mr. McDuff, the member for Glenlivet. That is the coroner for middle sex conversing with the great surgeon, Dr. Cutler Sharp, and that pretty laughing girl talking with them is no other than the celebrated Miss Pinnifer, whose novel of Ralph the Resurrectionist created such a sensation after it was abused in the trimestrial review.
It was a little bold, certainly. I just looked at it at my club. After hours devoted to parish duty, a clergyman is sometimes allowed, you know, de sephorie in loco. There are descriptions in it certainly startling, ideas about marriage not exactly orthodox. But the poor child wrote the book actually in the nursery, and all England was ringing with it before Dr. Pinafore, her father, knew who was the author. That is The Doctor, Asleep in the Corner by Miss Rudge. The American authoress, who I dare say is explaining to him the difference between the two governments. My dear Mrs. Newcomb, I am giving my brother-in-law a little sketch of some of the celebrities who are crowding your salon tonight.
What a delightful evening you have given us. I try to do my best, Colonel Newcomb, said the lady of the house. I hope many a night we may see you here. And, as I said this morning, Clive, when he is of an age to appreciate this kind of entertainment. Fashion I do not worship. You may meet that amongst other branches of our family, but genius and talent I do reverence. And if I can be the means, the humble means, to bring men of genius together, mine to associate with mine, men of all nations to mingle in friendly unison, I shall not have lived altogether in vain. They call us women of the world frivolous, Colonel Newcomb. So, some may be. I do not say there are not, in our own family, persons who worship mere worldly rank.
And think but of fashion and gaiety. But such, I trust, will never be the objects in my life of me and my children. We are but merchants. We seek to be no more. If I can look around me and see, as I do, she waves her fan round, and points to the illustrations scintillating round the room, and see, as I do now, A Posky, whose name is ever connected with Polish history, and a Tour, who has exchanged a tonsure in Iraq for our own free country. A Hammerstein, and a Quartz. A Miss Rudge, our transatlantic sister, who I trust will not mention this modest salon in her forthcoming work on Europe. And Miss Pinnifer, whose genius I acknowledge, though I deplore her opinions. If I can gather together travelers, poets and painters, princes and distinguished soldiers from the East, and clergymen remarkable for their eloquence, my humble aim is attained, and Maria Newcomb is not altogether useless in her generation.
Will you take a little refreshment? Allow your sister to go down to the dining room, supported by your gallant arm. She looked round to the admiring congregation, whereof Honeyman, as it were, acted as clerk, and flirting her fan, and flinging up her little head. Consummate virtue walked down on the arm of the colonel. The refreshment was rather meager. The foreign artist generally dashed downstairs and absorbed all the ices, creams, etc. To those coming late, there were chicken bones, tablecloths puddled with melted ice, glasses hazy with sherry, and broken bits of bread. The colonel said he never supped, and he and Honeyman walked away together, the former to bed, the latter, I am sorry to say, to his club.
For he was a dainty feeder, and loved lobster, and talked late at night, and a comfortable little glass of something wherewith to conclude the day. He agreed to come to breakfast with the Colonel, who named eight or nine for the meal. Nine Mr. Honeyman agreed to with a sigh. The incumbent of Lady Whittlesey's Chapel seldom rose before eleven, for, to tell the truth, no French abbot of Louis XV was more lazy and luxurious and effeminate than our polite bachelor preacher. One of Colonel Newcomb's fellow passengers from India was Mr. James Binney of the Civil Service, a jolly young bachelor of two or three and forty, who, having spent half of his past life in Bengal, was bent upon enjoying the remainder in Britain or in Europe, if a residence at home should prove agreeable to him.
The Nabob of books and tradition is a personage no longer to be found among us. He is neither as wealthy nor as wicked as the jaundiced monster of romances and comedies, who purchases the estates of broken-down English gentlemen, with rupees tortured out of bleeding rajahs, who smokes a hookah in public and in private carries about a guilty conscience, diamonds of untold value, and a diseased liver, who has a vulgar wife, with a retinue of black servants whom she maltreats. and a gentle son and daughter with good impulses and an imperfect education, desirous to amend their own and their parents' lives, and thoroughly ashamed of the follies of the old people. If you go to the house of an Indian gentleman now, he does not say, bring more curacles, like the famous Nabob of Stansted Park.
He goes to Lettenhall Street in an omnibus. And walks back from the city for exercise. I have known some who have had maidservants to wait on them at dinner. I have met scores who look as florid and rosy as any British squire. And as for hookahs... I dare swear there are not two now kept alight within the bills of mortality, and that retired Indians would as soon think of smoking them as their wives would of burning themselves on their husbands' bodies at the cemetery, Kensal Green, near to the Tibernian quarter of the city which the Indian world at present inhabits. It used to be Baker Street and Harley Street. It used to be Portland Place. And in more early days, Bedford Square, where the Indian magnates flourished.
Districts which have fallen from their pristine state of splendor now, even as Agra, and Benares, and Lucknow, and Tipu Sultan City are fallen. After two and twenty years absence from London, Mr. Benny returned to it on the top of the Goss Port coach with a hatbox and a little portmanteau. A pink, fresh-shaven face. A perfect appetite, a suit of clothes like everybody else's, and not the shadow of a black servant. He called a cab at the Whitehorse Cellar and drove to Nerott's Hotel, Clifford Street, and he gave the cabman eight pence, making the fellow, who grumbled, understand that Clifford Street was not 200 yards from Bond Street, and that he was paid at the rate of five shillings and four pence per mile.
Calculating the mile at only 1,600 yards, he asked the waiter at what time Colonel Newcomb had ordered dinner, and finding there was an hour on his hands before the meal, walked out to examine the neighborhood for a lodging where he could live more quietly than in a hotel. He called it a hotel. Mr. Binney was a North Briton, his father having been a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh. who had procured his son a writership in return for electioneering services done to an East Indian director. Binnie had his retiring pension and, besides, had saved half his allowances ever since he had been in India. He was a man of great reading, no small ability, considerable accomplishment, excellent good sense, and good humor.
The ostentatious said he was a screw. But he gave away more money than far more extravagant people. He was a disciple of David Hume, whom he admired more than any other mortal, and the serious denounced him as a man of dangerous principles, though there were, among the serious, men much more dangerous than James Binney. On returning to his hotel, Colonel Newcomb found this worthy gentleman installed in his room in the best armchair sleeping cozily. The evening paper lay decently over his plump waistcoat, and his little legs placed on an opposite chair. Mr. Binney woke up briskly when the colonel entered. "'It is you, you gadabout, is it?' cried the civilian. "'How has the Beaumont of London treated the Indian Adonis?
Have you made a sensation, Newcomb?' "'Gad, Tom, I remember you a buck a bucks when that coat first came out to Calcutta.'" Just a barrack for a brummel. In Lord Minto's reign, was it, or when Lord Hastings was satrap over us? A man must have one good coat, says the Colonel. I don't profess to be a dandy, but get a coat from a good tailor, and then have done with it. He still thought his garment was as handsome as need be. Done with it? You're never done with it, cries the civilian. An old coat is an old friend, old Benny. I don't want to be rid of one or the other. How long did you and my boy sit up together? Isn't he a fine lad, Benny? I expect you are going to put him down for something handsome in your will.
See what it is to have a real friend now, Colonel. I stayed up for you. Or, let us say more correctly, I waited for you. "'Because I knew you would want to talk about that scapegrace of yours. And if I had gone to bed, I should have had you walking up to number 28 and waking me out of my first rosy slumber. Well, now confess. Avoid not. Haven't you fallen in love with some young beauty on the very first night of your arrival in your sister's Say Long, and selected a mother-in-law for young scapegrace?' "'Isn't he a fine fellow, James?' says the Colonel, lighting a cheroot as he sits on the table. "'Was it joy, or the bedroom candle with which he lighted his cigar, which illuminated his honest features so, and made them so to shine?' "'I have been occupied, sir, in taking the lad's moral measurement, and have pumped him as successfully as ever I cross-examined a rogue in my court.' I place his qualities thus.
Love of Approbation, sixteen. Benevolence, fourteen. Combativeness, fourteen. Adhesiveness, two. Amativeness is not yet, of course, fully developed, but I expect will be prodigiously strong. The imaginative and reflective organs are very large, those of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or you may make a soldier of him. Though worse men, then him's good enough for that. But a bad merchant, a lazy lawyer, and a miserable mathematician. He has wit and conscientiousness, so you mustn't think of making a clergyman of him. Binnie, says the Colonel gravely, you are always sneering at the cloth. When I think that, But for my appointment to India, I should have been a luminary of the faith and a pillar of the church, grappling with the ghostly enemy in the pulpit and giving out the psalm.
"'Eh, sir, what a loss Scottish divinity has had in James Binney,' cries the little civilian with his most comical face. But that is not the question. My opinion, Colonel." Is that young scapegrace will give you a deal of trouble, or would, only you are so absurdly proud of him that you think everything he does is perfection. He'll spend your money for you. He'll do as little work as need be. He'll get into scrapes with the sacks. He's almost as simple as his father, and that is to say that any rogue will cheat him, and he seems to me to have got your obstinate habit of telling the truth, Colonel. Which may prevent his getting on in the world, but on the other hand will keep him from going very wrong, so that, though there is every fear for him, there is some hope and some consolation.
What do you think of his Latin and Greek? asked the colonel. Before going out to his party, Newcomb had laid a deep scheme with Benny, and it had been agreed that the latter should examine the young fellow in his humanities. cries the Scot. I find that the lad knows as much about Greek and Latin as I knew myself when I was eighteen years of age. Idea of Benny, is it possible? You, the best scholar in all India? And which amounted to exactly nothing. He has acquired in five years, and by the admiral's system pursued at your public schools just about as much knowledge of the ancient languages As he could get by three months' application at home. Mind you, I don't say he would apply. It is most probable he would do no such thing.
But at the cost of how much? 200 pounds annually for five years, he has acquired about 5 and 20 guineas worth of classical literature. Enough, I dare say, to enable him to quote Horace respectively through life. And what more do you want from a young man of his expectations? I think I should send him into the army. That's the best place for him. There's the least to do, and the handsomest clothes to wear. Aksay Segnum, says the little wag, dangerly taking up the tail of his friend's coat. There's never any knowing whether you are unjust or an earnest, Binney, the puzzled colonel said. "'How should you know when I don't know myself?' answered the Scotchman. "'In earnest now, Tom Newcomb, I think your boy is as fine a lad as I ever set eyes on.
He seems to have intelligence and good temper. He carries his letter of recommendation in his countenance, and with the honesty—and the rupees, mind you—which he inherits from his father, the deuce is in it if he can't make his way.'" What time's the breakfast? Eh, but it was a comfort this morning not to hear the holy stoning on the deck. We ought to go into lodgings and not fling our money out of the window of this hotel. We must make the young chap. Take us about and show us the town in the morning, Tom. I had but three days of it five-and-twenty years ago, and I propose to resume my observations tomorrow after breakfast. We'll just go on deck and see how's her head before we turn in, eh, Colonel?
And with this, the jolly gentleman nodded over his candle to his friend and trotted off to bed. The Colonel and his friend were light sleepers and early risers. Like most men that come from the country, where they had both been so long sojourning, and were awake and dressed long before the London waiters had thought of quitting their beds. The housemaid was the only being stirring in the morning, while little Mr. Binney blundered over her pail as she was washing the deck. Early as he was, his fellow-traveller had preceded him. Binney found the colonel in his sitting room, Arrayed in what are called in Scotland his stalking feet, already puffing the cigar, which in truth was seldom out of his mouth at any hour of the day.
He had a couple of bedrooms adjacent to the sitting room, and when Benny, as brisk and rosy about the gills as Chanticleer, broke out in a morning salutation, Hush, says the Colonel, putting a long finger up to his mouth. And advancing towards him as noiselessly as a ghost. What's in the wind now, asks the little Scot, and what for have you not got your shoes on? Clive's asleep, says the Colonel, with a countenance full of extreme anxiety. The darling boy slumbers, Dussie, said the wag. Mayn't I just step in and look at his beautiful countenance whilst he's asleep, Colonel? "'You may if you take off those confounded, creaking shoes,' the other answered quite gravely, and Benny turned away to hide his jolly round face, which was screwed up with laughter.
"'Have you been breathing a prayer over your rosy infant slumbers, Tom?' asked Mr. Benny. "'And if I have, James Benny,' the Colonel said gravely, and his sallow face blushing somewhat, "'if I have, I hope I've done no harm.' The last time I saw him asleep was nine years ago. A sickly little pale-faced boy in his little cot. And now, sir, that I see him again, strong and handsome, and all that a fond father can wish to see a boy, I should be an ungrateful villain, James, if I didn't. If I didn't do what you said just now. And thank God Almighty for restoring him to me." Benny did not laugh anymore. By George Tom Newcomb, said he, you're just one of the saints of the earth. If all men were like you, there'd be an end of both our trades.
There would be no fighting and no soldiering, no rogues and no magistrates to catch them. The colonel wondered at his friend's enthusiasm, who was not used to be complimentary. Indeed, what's so usual with him as that simple act of gratitude and devotion about which his comrades spoke to him. To ask a blessing for his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day was over. His first and his last thought was always the child. The two gentlemen were home in time, enough to find Clive dressed, And his uncle arrived for breakfast. The colonel said a grace over that meal. The life was begun, which he had longed and prayed for, and the sun smiling before his eyes, who had been in his thoughts for so many fond years.
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9 09 - Chapter 9: Miss Honeyman's 43:14
The Newcomes by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter Nine. Miss Honeyman's. In Stained Gardens, Brighton. The lodging houses are among the most frequented in that city of lodging houses. These mansions have bow windows in front, bulging out with gentle prominences, and ornamented with neat verandas, from which you can behold the tide of humankind as it flows up and down the stain, and that blue ocean over which Britannia is said to rule, stretching brightly away eastward and westward. The chain pier, as everybody knows, runs intrepidly into the sea, which sometimes, in fine weather, bathes its feet with laughing wavelets, and anon, on stormy days, dashes over its sides with roaring foam. Here, for the sum of two pence, you can go out to sea and pace this vast deck without need of a steward with a basin.
You can watch the sun setting in splendor over Worthing, or illuminating with its rising glories the ups and downs of Rottingdean. You see the citizen with his family inveigled into the shallops of the mercenary native mariner, and fancy that the motion cannot be pleasant, and how the hirer of the boat, odium et opidi laudit rurisui, happily sighs for ease. and prefers Richmond or Hampstead. You behold a hundred bathing machines, put to sea, and your naughty fancy depicts the beauties splashing under their white awnings. Along the rippled sands, stay. Are they rippled sands or shingly beach? The prawn boy seeks the delicious material of your breakfast. Breakfast meal in London almost unknown.
greedily devoured in Brighton. In yon vessels now, nearing the shore, the sleepless mariner has ventured forth to seize the delicate whiting, the greedy and foolish mackerel, and the homely soul. Hark to the twanging horn. It is the early coach going out to London. Your eye follows it, and rests on the pinnacles built by the beloved George. See the worn-out London rouet pacing the pier, inhaling the sea air and casting furtive glances under the bonnets of the pretty girls who trot here before lessons. Mark the bilious lawyer escaped for a day from Pump Court and sniffing the fresh breezes before he goes back to breakfast and a bag full of briefs at the Albion. See that pretty string of prattling schoolgirls, from the chubby-cheeked, flaxen-headed little maiden just toddling by the side of the second teacher, to the arch-damsel of fifteen, giggling and conscious of her beauty, whom Miss Griffin, the stern-head governess, awfully reproves.
See Tompkins, with a telescope and marine jacket, young Nathan and young Abrams, I'll ready be dyes in jewelry, and rivaling the sun in oriental splendor. Yonder poor invalid crawling along in her chair. Yonder jolly fat lady examining the brightened pebbles. I actually once saw a lady buy one. And her children, wondering at the sticking place to portraits with gold hair, and gold stocks, and prodigious high-heeled boots. Miracles of art. And cheap at seven and sixpence. It is the fashion to run down George IV. But what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for inventing Brighton? One of the best of physicians our city has ever known is kind, cheerful, merry Dr. Brighton. Hail, thou purveyor of shrimps and honest prescriber of South Down mutton.
There is no mutton so good as Brighton mutton. No fly so pleasant as Brighton flies, nor any cliff so pleasant to ride on, no shop so beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack shops and the fruit shops in the market. I fancy myself in Mrs. Honeyman's lodgings in stained gardens and in enjoyment of all these things. If the gracious reader has had losses in his life, Loss is not so bad as to cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury of starvation. Let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by no means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money has been invested in West Little Sex Bonds or other luckless speculations. The news of the smash comes. You pay your outlying bills with the balance at the bankers.
You assemble your family and make them a fine speech. The wife of your bosom goes round and embraces the sons and daughters, as seriatim, nestling in your own waistcoat finally, in possession of which, she says, with tender tears and fond quotations from Holy Writ, God bless her. And of the darlings round about, buys all her worldly treasure. The weeping servants are dismissed, their wages paid in full, and with a present of prayer and hymn books from their mistress, your elegant house in Harley Street is to let. And you subside into lodgings in Pentonville, or Kensington, or Brompton. How unlike the mansion where you paid taxes and distributed elegant hospitality for so many years. You subside into lodgings, I say, and you find yourself very tolerably comfortable.
I am not sure that in her heart your wife is not happier than in what she calls her happy days. She will be somebody hereafter. She was nobody in Harley Street. That is, everybody else in her visiting book. Take the names all round. Was as good as she. They had the very same entrees, platedware, men to wait, etc., at all the houses where you visited in the street. Your candlesticks might be handsomer, and indeed, they had a very fine effect upon the dinner table. But then Mr. Jones' silver or electroplated dishes were much finer. You had more carriages at your door on the evening of your delightful soirees than Mrs. Brown. There is no phrase more elegant, and to my taste, than that in which people are described as seeing a great deal of carriage company.
But yet Mrs. Brown, from the circumstance of her being a baronet's niece, took precedence of your dear wife at most tables. Hence the latter charming woman scorned, At the British Baronetcy, and her many jokes at the Order, in a word, and in the height of your social prosperity, there was always a lurking dissatisfaction, and a something bitter in the midst of the fountain of delights at which you were permitted to drink. There is no good, unless your taste is that way, in living in a society where you are merely the equal of everybody else. Many people give themselves extreme pains to frequent company where all around them are their superiors, and where, do what you will, you must be subject to continual mortification.
As, for instance, when Martianus X forgets you, and you can't help thinking that she cuts you on purpose, when Duchess Z passes by in her diamonds, etc. The true pleasure of life is to live with your inferiors. Be the cock of your village, the queen of your coterie, and besides very great persons, the people whom fate has specially endowed with this kindly consolation, are those who have seen what are called better days, those who have had losses. I am like Caesar, and of a noble mind, If I cannot be first in Piccadilly, let me try Hatton Garden and see whether I cannot lead the ton there. If I cannot take the lead at White's or the Traveler's, let me be president of the Jolly Band Boys at the Bag of Nails and blackball everybody who does not pay me honor.
If my darling Betsy cannot go out for a drawing room until a baronet's niece, ha, ha. A baronet's niece, forsooth, has walked before her. Let us frequent company where we shall be the first. And how can we be the first unless we select our inferiors for our associates? This kind of pleasure is to be had by almost everybody, and at scarce any cost. With a shillings worth of tea and muffins, you can get as much adulation and respect as many people cannot purchase with a thousand pounds worth of plate and profusion. Hired footmen turning their houses topsy-turvy and suffers from gunters. Adulation. Why, the people who come to you give as good parties as you do. Respect. The very menials who wait behind your supper table waited at a duke's yesterday and actually patronized you.
Oh, you silly spendthrift. You can buy flattery for two pence, and you spend ever so much money in entertaining your equals and betters, and nobody admires you. Now, Aunt Honeyman was a woman of a thousand virtues. Cheerful, frugal, honest, Laborious, charitable, good-humored, truth-telling, devoted to her family, capable of any sacrifice for those she loved. And when she came to have losses of money, fortune straightaway compensated her by many kindnesses which no income can supply. The good old lady admired the word gentlewoman of all others in the English vocabulary, and made all around her Feel that such was her rank. Her mother's father was a naval captain. Her father had taken pupils, got a living, sent his son to college, dined with the squire, published his volume of sermons, was liked in his parish, where Miss Honeyman kept house for him, was respected for his kindness and famous for his port wine, and so died, leaving about two hundred pounds a year to his two children.
Nothing to Clive Newcomb's mother, who had displeased him by her first marriage, an elopement with Ensign Casey, and subsequent light courses. Charles Honeyman spent his money elegantly on wine parties at Oxford, and afterwards in foreign travel. Spent his money and as much on Miss Honeyman's as that worthy soul would give him. She was a woman of spirit and resolution. She brought her furniture to Brighton, believing that the whole place still fondly remembered her grandfather, Captain Noakes, who had resided there and his gallantry in Lord Rodney's action, with the Count de Grasse, took a house, and led the upper floors to lodgers. The little brisk old lady brought a maidservant out of the country with her, who was daughter to her father's clerk.
And had learned her letters and worked her first sampler under Miss Honeyman's own eye, whom she adored all through her life. No Indian Begum, rolling in wealth, no Countess Mistress of castles and townhouses, ever had such a faithful toady as Hannah Hicks was to her mistress. Under Hannah was a young lady from the workhouse, who called Hannah, Mrs. Hicks' mama. And who bowed in awe as much before that domestic as Hannah did before Miss Honeyman. At five o'clock in summer, at seven in winter, when Miss Honeyman, a good economist, was charry of candlelight, Hannah woke up little Sally, and these three women rose. I leave you to imagine what a row there was in the establishment if Sally appeared with flowers under her bonnet.
Gave signs of levity or insubordination, prolonged her absence when sent forth for the beer, or was discovered in flirtation with the baker's boy or the grocer's young man. Sally was frequently renewed. Miss Honeyman called all her young persons Sally, and a great number of Sallies were consumed in her house. The qualities of the Sally for the time being formed a constant and delightful subject of conversation between Hannah and her mistress. The few friends who visited Miss Honeyman in her back parlor had their sallies, in discussing whose peculiarities of disposition these good ladies passed the hours agreeably over their tea. Many persons who let lodgings in Brighton have been servants themselves.
Our retired housekeepers, tradesfolk, and the like. With these surrounding individuals, Hannah treated on a footing of equality, bringing to her mistress accounts of their various goings-on. How number six was let. How number nine had not paid his rent again. How the first floor of twenty-seven had game almost every day, and made dishes for muttons. How the family who had taken Mrs. Bugsby's had left as usual after the very first night. The poor little infant blistered all over with bites on its little dear face. How the Miss Leary's was going unshameful with the two young men. Actually, in their setting room, Mom, where one of them offered Miss Laura Leary a cigar. How Mrs. Cribs still went cutting pounds and pounds of meat off the lodger's gents, emptying their tea-caddies, actually reading their letters.
Sally had been told so by Polly the Cribs' maid, who was kept. How that poor child was kept, hearing language perfectly awful. These tales and anecdotes, not altogether redounding to their neighbor's credit, Hannah copiously collected and brought to her mistress's tea-table, or served at her frugal little supper, when Miss Honeyman, the labors of the day over, partook of that cheerful meal. I need not say that such horrors as occurred at Mrs. Bugsby's never befell in Mrs. Honeyman's establishment. Every room was fiercely swept and sprinkled, and watched by cunning eyes which nothing could escape. Curtains were taken down, mattresses explored, every bone in bed dislocated and washed as soon as a lodger took his departure.
And, as for cripping meat or sugar, Sally might occasionally abstract a lump or two, or pop a veal cutlet into her mouth while bringing the dishes downstairs. Sally's would, giddy creatures bred in workhouses. But Hannah might be entrusted with untold gold and uncorked brandy, and Miss Honeyman would as soon think of cutting a slice off Hannah's nose and devouring it as of poaching on her lodger's mutton. The best mutton broth, the best veal cutlets, the best necks of mutton and French beans, the best fried fish and plumpest partridges in all Brighton were to be had at Miss Honeyman's, And for her favorites, the best Indian curry and rice, coming from a distinguished relative, at present an officer in Bengal.
But very few were admitted to this mark of Miss Honeyman's confidence. If a family did not go to church, they were not in favor. If they went to a dissenting meeting, she had no opinion of them at all. Once they came to her house, a quiet Staffordshire family, who ate no meat on Fridays, and whom Miss Honeyman pitied as belonging to the Romish superstition. But when they were visited by two corpulent gentlemen in black, one of whom wore a purple under-waistcoat, before whom the Staffordshire lady absolutely sank down on her knees as he went into the drawing-room. Miss Honeyman sternly gave warning to these idolaters. She would have no Jesuits in her premises. She showed Hannah the picture in Howell's Medulla of the martyrs burning at Smithfield, who said, Lord bless you, Mom, and hoped it was a long time ago.
She called on the curate, and many and many a time, for years after, Pointed out to her friends, and sometimes to her lodgers, the spot on the carpet where the poor benighted creature had knelt down. So she went on, respected by all her friends, by all her tradesmen, by herself not a little, talking of her previous misfortunes with amusing equanimity. As if her father's parsonage house had been a palace of splendor, and the one-horse chaise, with the lamps for evenings, from which she had descended a noble equipage. But I know it is for the best, Clive, she would say to her nephew in describing those grandeurs, and thank heaven can be resigned in that station in life to which it has pleased God to call me.
The good lady was called the Duchess by her fellow tradesfolk in the square which she lived. I don't know what would have come to her had she been told she was a tradeswoman. Her butchers, bakers, and market people paid her as much respect as though she had been a grandee's housekeeper out of Kemptown. Knowing her station, she yet was kind to those inferior beings. She held affable conversations with them. She patronized Mr. Rogers, who was said to be worth a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand pounds, or pounds was it, and who said, Law bless the old Duchess, she do make as much of a pound of veal cutlet as some would of a score of bullocks. But you see, she's a lady born and a lady bred.
She'd die before she'd owe her pardon, and she's seen better days, you know. She went to see the grocer's wife on an interesting occasion and won the heart of the family by tasting their candle. Her fishmonger—it was fine to hear a talk of my fishmonger—would sell her a whiting as respectfully as if she had called for a dozen turbos and lobsters. It was believed by those good folks that her father had been a bishop at the very least. And the better days which she had known were supposed to signify some almost unearthly prosperity. I have always found, Hannah, the simple soul would say, that people know their place, or can be very, very easily made to find it, if they lose it. And if a gentlewoman does not forget herself, her inferiors will not forget that she is a gentlewoman.
"'No, indeed, Mom, and I'm sure they would do no such thing, Mom,' says Hannah, who carries away the teapot for her own breakfast, to be transmitted to Sally for her subsequent refection, whilst her mistress washes her cup and saucer, as her mother had washed her own china many scores of years ago.'" If some of the surrounding lodging-house keepers, as I have no doubt they did, disliked the little duchess for the heirs which she gave herself, as they averred, they must have envied her to her superior prosperity, for there was scarcely ever a card in her window, whilst those ensigns in her neighbors' houses would remain exposed to the flies and the weather, and disregarded by passers-by's for months together.
She had many regular customers, or what should be rather called constant friends. Deaf old Mr. Crinklade came every winter for 14 years and stopped until the hunting was over. An invaluable man, giving little trouble, passing all day on horseback and all night over his rubber at the club. The Mrs. Barkham, Barkenberry, Tundridge Wells. Whose father had been at college with Mr. Honeyman, came regularly in June for sea air, letting bargain bury for the summer season. Then, for many years, she had her nephew, as we have seen, and kind recommendations from the clergymen of Brighton, and a constant friend in the celebrated Dr. Goodenough of London, who had been her father's private pupil. And of his college afterwards, who sent his patients from time to time down to her, and his fellow physician, Dr.
H., who, on his part, would never take any fee from Miss Honeyman, except a packet of Indian curry powder, a ham cured, as she only knew how to cure them, and once a year or so, a dish of her tea. Was there ever such luck as that confounded old duchess's, says Mr. Gawler, coal merchant and lodging-house keeper, next door but two, whose apartments were more odious in some respects than Mrs. Bugsby's own? Was there ever such devil's own luck, Mrs. G? It's only a fortnight ago, as I read in the Sussex Advertiser, the death of Miss Barkham, of Barkhambury, Tundridge Wells, And thinks I. There's a spoke in your wheel, you stuck-up little old duchess, with your cussed airs and impudence. And she ain't put her card up there three days.
And look here. Here's two carriages, two maids, three children, one of them wrapped up in a hanger shawl. Man, how the livery. Looks like a foreign cove, I think. Lady and Satin Police, and of course they go to the Duchess. Be hanged to her. Of course it's our luck. Nothing ever was like our luck. I'm blowed if I don't put a pistol to my head. And end it, Mrs. G. There they go in, three, four, six, seven on him, and the man. That's the precious child's physic I suppose he's a-carrying in the basket. Just look at the luggage, I say. There's a bloody hand on the first carriage. It's a baronet, is it? I ope your ladyship's very well, and I ope Sir John will soon be down yet to join his family. Mr.
Gawler makes sarcastic bows over the card in his bow window whilst making this speech. The little gallers rush on to the drawing-room veranda themselves to examine the new arrivals. "'This is Mrs. Honeyman's,' asked the gentleman designated by Mr. Gawler as the Four-Ring Cove, and hands in a card on which the words, "'Miss Honeyman, 110, Stain Gardens, J. Goodenough,' are written in that celebrated physician's handwriting. "'We want five bedrooms, six beds, two woodry sitting rooms. Have you got these?' "'Will you speak to my mistress,' says Hannah." And if it is a fact that Miss Honeyman does happen to be in the front parlor looking at the carriages, what harm is there in the circumstance, pray?
Is not Gawler looking, and the people next door? Are not half a dozen little boys already gathered in the street, as if they started up out of the trap-doors for the coals? And the nursery-maids in the stunted little garden? Are not they looking through the bars of the square? "'Please just speak to mistress,' says Hannah, opening the parlor door, and with a curtsy. "'A gentleman about the apartments, Mom.' "'Five bedrooms,' says the man entering. "'Six beds, two or three sitting rooms. "'We've gone from Dr. Goodenough.' "'Are the apartments for you, sir,' says the little duchess, "'looking up at the large gentleman?' "'Four my lady,' answers the man." "'Had you not better take off your hat?' asks the Duchess, pointing out of one of her little mittens to the foreign cove's beaver, which he has neglected to remove.
The man grins and takes off the hat. "'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' says he. "'Have you five bedrooms?' et cetera. The doctor has cured the German of an illness, as well as his employers, and especially recommended Miss Honeyman to Mr. Kuhn." I have such a number of apartments. My servant will show them to you. And she walks back with great state to her chair by the window, and resumes her station and work there. Mr. Kuhn reports to his mistress, who descends to inspect the apartments, accompanied through them by Hannah. The rooms are pronounced to be exceedingly neat and pleasant, and exactly what are wanted for the family. The baggage is forthwith, ordered to be brought from the carriages. The little invalid, wrapped in his shawl, is brought upstairs by the affectionate Mr.
Kuhn, who carries him as gently as if he had been bred all his life to nurse babies. The smiling Sally, the Sally for the time being, happens to be a very fresh, pink-cheeked, pretty little Sally. Emerges from the kitchen and introduces the young ladies, the governess, the maids, to their apartments. The eldest, a slim, black-haired young lass of thirteen, frisks about the rooms, looks at all the pictures, runs in and out of the veranda, tries the piano, and bursts out laughing at its wheezy jingle. It had been poor Emma's piano, bought for her on her seventeenth birthday. Three weeks before she ran away with the ensign, her music is still in the stand by it. The Reverend Charles Honeyman has warbled sacred melodies over it, and Miss Honeyman considers it a delightful instrument, kisses her languid little brother laid on the sofa, and performs a hundred gay and agile motions suited to her age.
Oh, what a piano! Why, it is as cracked as Miss Quigley's voice. My dear, says Mama, the little languid boy bursts out into a jolly laugh. What funny pictures, Mama. Action with Count de Grasse, the death of General Wolfe, a portrait of an officer, an old officer in blue, like Grandpapa. Brazen-nosed College, Oxford. What a funny name. At the idea of Brazen-nosed College, Another laugh comes from the invalid. I suppose they've all got brass noses there, he says, and explodes at this joke. The poor little laugh ends in a cough, and Mama's traveling basket, which contains everything, produces a bottle of syrup labeled Master A. Newcomb, a teaspoonful to be taken when the cough is troublesome. Oh, the delightful sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever-free sings the young lady with a shake. I suppose the maritime song from which she quoted was just written at this time. How much better this is than going home and seeing those horrid factories and chimneys. I love Dr. Goodenough for sending us here. What a sweet house it is. Everybody is happy in it. Even Miss Quigley is happy, Mama. What nice rooms! What pretty chins! What a, oh, what a comfortable sofa! And she falls down on the sofa which, truth to say, was the Reverend Charles Honeyman's luxurious sofa from Oxford, presented to him by young Sibber Wright of Christ Church, when that gentleman commoner was eliminated from the university. The person of the house, says Mama.
Hardly comes up to Dr. Goodenough's description of her. He says he remembers her a pretty little woman when her father was his private tutor. She has grown very much since, says the girl, and an explosion takes place from the sofa, where the little man is always ready to laugh at any joke or anything like a joke, uttered by himself or by any of his family or friends. As for Dr. Goodenough, he says laughing has saved that boy's life. She looks quite like a maid, continues the lady. She has hard hands, and she called me Mum always. I was quite disappointed in her. And she subsides into a novel. With many of what kind of works, and with other volumes, and with work boxes, and with wonderful ink stands, portfolios, portable days of the month, scent bottles, scissor cases, gilt miniature, even.
The person supposed to be the landlady enters the room at this juncture. And the lady rises to receive her. The little wag on the sofa puts his arm round her sister's neck and whispers, I say, Eth, isn't she a pretty girl? I shall write to Dr. Goodenough and tell him how much she's grown. Convulsions follow this Sally, to the surprise of Hannah, who says, Pootie little dear, what time will he have his dinner, Mom? Thank you, Mrs. Honeyman. At two o'clock, says the lady with the bow of her head, there is a clergyman of your name in London. Is he a relation? The lady in her turn is astonished, for the tall person breaks out into a grin and says, Law, Mom, you're speaking of Master Charles. He's in London.
Indeed, of Master Charles. And you take me for Mrs. Mom. "'I beg your pardon, Mom,' cries Hannah." The invalid hits his sister in the side with a weak little fist. "'If laughter can cure, salve us rest. Dr. Goodenough's patient is safe. Master Charles is Mrs.''s brother, Mom. I've got no brother, Mom. Never had no brother. Only one son. Who's in the police, Mom, thank you. And law, bless me. I was going to forget.' "'If you please, Mom,' Mrs. says, "'if you are quite rested, she will pay her duty to you, Mom.'" "'Oh, indeed,' says the lady rather stiffly, and taking this for an acceptance of her mistress's visit, Hannah retires. "'This Miss Honeyman seems to be a great personage,' says the lady.
"'If people let lodgings, why do they give themselves such airs?' "'We never saw Monsieur de Bourne at Boulogne, Mama.'" interposes the girl. Monsieur de Bonne, my dear Ethel, Monsieur de Bonne is very well. But here the door opens, and on a large cap bristling with ribbons, with her best chestnut front and her best black silk gown, on which her gold watch shines very splendidly, little Miss Honeyman makes her appearance, and a dignified curtsy to her lodger. That lady vouchsafes a very slight inclination of the head indeed, which she repeats when Miss Honeyman says, I am glad to hear your ladyship is pleased with the apartments. Yes, they will do very well, thank you, answers the latter person gravely.
And they have such a beautiful view of the sea, cries Ethel. As if all the houses hadn't a view of the sea, Ethel. The price has been arranged, I think. My servants will require a comfortable room to dine in. By themselves, ma'am, if you please. My governess and the younger children will dine together. My daughter dines with me, and my little boy's dinner will be ready at two o'clock precisely, if you please. It is now near one. Am I to understand, interposed Miss Honeymoon? Oh, "'I have no doubt we shall understand each other, ma'am,' cried Lady Anne Newcomb, whose noble presence the acute reader has no doubt air this divined and saluted. "'Dr. Goodenough has given me a most satisfactory account of you, more satisfactory, perhaps, than you were aware of.' Perhaps Lady Anne's sentence was not going to end in a very satisfactory way, or Miss Honeyman.
But awed by a peculiar look of resolution in the little lady, her larger of an hour paused in whatever offensive remark she might have been about to make. It is as well that I at last have the pleasure of seeing you, that I may state what I want, and that we may, as you say, understand each other. Breakfast and tea, if you please, will be served in the same manner as dinner. And you will have the kindness to order fresh milk every morning for my little boy. Ass's milk. Dr. Goodenough has ordered ass's milk. Anything further I want, I will communicate through the person who spoke to you. Kuhn. Mr. Kuhn. And that will do." A heavy shower of rain was descending at this moment, and little Mrs. Honeyman, looking at her lodger, who had sat down and taken up her book, said, Have your ladyship's servants unpacked your trunks?
What on earth, madam, have you? Has that to do with the question? They will be put to the trouble of packing again, I fear. I cannot provide three times five or fifteen, fifteen separate meals for seven persons, besides those of my own family. If your servants cannot eat with mine, Or in my kitchen, they and their mistress must go elsewhere. And the sooner the better, madam. The sooner the better," says Mrs. Honeyman, trembling with indignation, and sitting down in a chair spreading her silks. Do you know who I am? asked Lady Anne, rising. Perfectly well, madam, says the other. And had I known, you should never have come into my house. That's more. "'Madam,' cries the lady, on which the poor little invalid, scared and nervous and hungry for his dinner, began to cry from his sofa.
"'It would be a pity that the dear little boy should be disturbed. Dear little child, I have often heard of him, and of you, miss,' says the little householder, rising. "'I will get you some dinner, my dear, for Clive's sake.' And meanwhile, your ladyship will have the kindness to seek for some other apartments. For not a bit shall my fire cook for any one else of your company. And with this, the indignant little landlady sailed out of the room. "'Cracious goodness! Who is the woman?' cries Lady Anne. "'I never was so insulted in my life.' "'Oh, Mama, it was you began,' says downright Ethel. "'That is, hush, Alfred, dear. Hush, my darling.' "'Oh, it was Mama began. I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry,' howled the little man on the sofa, or off it, rather, for he was now down on the ground, kicking away the shawls which enveloped him.
"'What is it, my boy? What is it, my blessed darling?' You shall have your dinner. Give her all, Ethel. There are the keys of my desk. There's my watch. There are my rings. Let her take my all. The monster. The child must live. It can't go away in such a storm as this. Give me a cloak, a parasol, anything. I'll go forth and get a lodging. I'll beg my bread from house to house, if this fiend refuses me. Eat the biscuits, dear. A little of the syrup. Alfred, darling, it's very nice, love, and come to your old mother, your poor old mother. Alfred roared out, no, it's not nice. It's nasty. I won't have syrup. I will have dinner. The mother, whose embraces the child repelled with infantile kicks, plunged madly at the bells, rang them all four vehemently.
And ran downstairs towards the parlor, whence Miss Honeyman was issuing. The good lady had not at first known the names of her lodgers, but had taken them in willingly enough on Dr. Goodenough's recommendation, and it was not until one of the nurses entrusted with the care of Master Alfred's dinner informed Miss Honeyman of the name of her guest that she knew she was entertaining Lady Anne Newcomb. And that the pretty girl was the fair Miss Ethel, the little sick boy, the little Alfred, of whom his cousin spoke, and of whom Clive had made a hundred little drawings in his rude way, as he drew everybody. Then, bidding Sally run off to St. James's Street for a chicken, she saw it put on the spit, and prepared a bread sauce, and composed a batter pudding, as she only knew how to make batter puddings.
Then she went to array herself in her best clothes, as we have seen. As we have heard, rather. Goodness forbid that we should see Miss Honeyman arraying herself, or penetrate that chaste mystery, her toilette. Then she came to wait upon Lady Anne, not a little flurried as to the result of that queer interview. Then she whisked out of the drawing-room, as before has been shown. And, finding the chicken roasted to a turn, the napkin and tray ready spread by Hannah, the neat-handed, she was bearing them up to the little patient when the frantic parent met her on the stairs. "'Is it? Is it for my child?' cried Lady Anne, reeling against the banister. "'Yes, it's for the child,' says Miss Honeyman, tossing up her head.
"'But nobody else has anything in the house.' "'God bless you! God bless you! Our mother's blessings go with you,' gurgled the lady who was not, it must be confessed, a woman of strong moral character." It was good to see the little man eating the fowl. Ethel, who had never cut anything in her young existence, except her fingers now and then, with her brother's and her governess's penknives, bethought her of asking Miss Honeyman to carve the chicken. Lady Anne, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, sat looking on at the ravishing scene. "'Why did you not let us know you were Clive's aunt?' Ethel asked, putting out her hand. The old lady took her very kindly and said, "'Because you didn't give me time.
And do you love Clive, my dear?' The reconciliation between Miss Honeyman and her lodger was perfect. Lady Anne wrote a choir of no paper ought to Sir Brian for that day's boast, only she was too late, as she always was. Mr. Kuhn perfectly delighted Miss Honeyman that evening by his droll sayings, jokes, and pronunciation, and by his praises of Master Glyph, as he called him. He lived out of the house, did everything for everybody, was never out of the way when wanted. And never in the way when not wanted. A'long Miss Honeyman got out a bottle of the famous Madeira which her colonel sent her, and treated him to a glass in her own room. Kuhn smacked his lips and held out the glass again. The honest rogue knew good wine.
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10 10 - Chapter 10: Ethel and her Relations 25:41
Ethel and her relations. For four and twenty successive hours, Lady Anne Newcomb was perfectly enraptured with her new lodgings and every person and thing which they contained. The drawing-rooms were fitted with the greatest taste. The dinner was exquisite. Were there ever such delicious veal cutlets, such verdant French beans? Why do we have those odious French cooks, my dear, with their shocking principles? The principles of all Frenchmen are shocking. And the dreadful bills they bring us in, and their consequential heirs and graces. I am determined to part with Brignol. I have written to your father this evening to give Brignol warning. When did he ever give us veal cutlets? What can be nicer?
Indeed they were very good, said Miss Ethel, who had muttoned five times a week at one o'clock. I am so glad you like the house, and Clive, and Mrs. Honeyman. Like her, the dear little old woman. I feel as if she had been my friend all my life. I feel quite drawn towards her. What a wonderful coincidence that Dr. Goodenough should direct us to this very house. I have written to your father about it, and to think that I should have written to Clive at this very house, and quite forgotten Mrs. Honeyman's name, and such an odd name, too. I forget everything, everything. You know, I forgot your Aunt Louisa's husband's name, and when I was godmother to her baby and the clergyman said, What is the infant's name?
I said, Really, I forget. And so I did. He was a London clergyman, but I forget at what church. Suppose it should be this very Mr. Honeyman. It may have been, you know, and then the coincidence would be still more droll. That tall, old, nice-looking, respectable person with a mark on her nose, the housekeeper—what is her name?—seems a most invaluable person. I think I shall ask her to come to us. I am sure she would save me I don't know how much money every week, and I am certain Mrs. Trotter is making a fortune by us. I shall write to your papa and ask him permission to ask this person. Ethel's mother was constantly falling in love with her new acquaintances, their man-servants and their maid-servants, their horses and ponies, and the visitor within their gates.
She would ask strangers to newcom, hug and embrace them on Sunday, not speak to them on Monday, and on Tuesday behave so rudely to them that they were gone before Wednesday. Her daughter had had so many governesses, all darlings during the first week and monsters afterwards, that the poor child possessed none of the accomplishments of her age. She could not play on the piano, she could not speak French well, she could not tell you when gunpowder was invented, she had not the faintest idea of the date of the Norman Conquest, or whether the earth went round the sun, or vice versa. She did not know the number of counties in England, Scotland, and Wales, let alone Ireland. She did not know the difference between latitude and longitude.
She had had so many governesses, their accounts differed. Poor Ethel was bewildered by a multiplicity of teachers, and thought herself a monster of ignorance. They gave her a book at a Sunday school, and little girls of eight years old answered questions of which she knew nothing. The place swam before her. She could not see the sun shining on their fair flaxen heads and pretty faces. The rosy little children holding up their eager hands and crying the answer to this question, and that seemed mocking her. She seemed to read in the book, O Ethel, you dunce, dunce, dunce. She went home silent in the carriage and burst into bitter tears on her bed. Naturally, a haughty girl of the highest spirit, resolute and imperious, this little visit to the parish school taught Ethel lessons more valuable than ever so much arithmetic and geography.
Clive has told me a story of her in her youth, which perhaps may apply to some others of the youthful female aristocracy. She used to walk with other select young ladies and gentlemen, their nurses and governesses, in a certain reserve plot of ground railed off from Hyde Park, whereof some of the lucky dwellers in the neighborhood of Apsley House have a key. In this garden, at the age of nine or thereabout, she had contracted an intimate friendship with the Lord Hercules Orion, as every one of my gentle readers knows one of the sons of the Marquis of Balishanon. The Lord Hercules was a year younger than Miss Ethel Newcome, which may account for the passion which grew up between these young persons, it being a provision of nature that a boy always falls in love with a girl older than himself, or rather, perhaps, that a girl bestows her affections on a little boy who submits to receive them.
One day, Sir Brian Newcome announced his intention to go to Newcome that very morning, taking his family and, of course, Ethel with him. She was inconsolable. What will Lord Hercules do when he finds I am gone? she asked of her nurse. The nurse, endeavoring to soothe her, said, Perhaps his lordship would know nothing about the circumstance. He will, said Miss Ethel. He'll read it in the newspaper. My lord Hercules, it is to be hoped, strangled this infant passion in the cradle, having long since married Isabella, only daughter of Grains' Esquire of Drayton Windsor, a partner in the great brewery of Fokker and Co. When Ethel was thirteen years old, she had grown to be such a tall girl that she over-topped her companions by a head or more, and more or less, perhaps, also felt herself too tall for their society.
Fancy myself, she thought, dressing a doll like Lily Putland or wearing a pinafore like Lucy Tucker. She did not care for their sports. She could not walk with them. It seemed as if everyone stared, nor danced with them at the academy. Nor tend the code de literature universal et la science compréhensive of the professor than the mode. The smallest girls took her up in the class. She was bewildered by the multitude of things they bade her learn. At the youthful little assemblies of her sex, when under the guide of their respected governesses the girls came to tea at six o'clock, dancing charades and so forth, Ethel herded not with the children of her own age, nor yet with the teachers who sit apart at these assemblies, imparting to each other their little wrongs, but Ethel romped with the little children, the rosy little trots, and took them on her knees and told them a thousand stories.
By thee she was adored and loved like a mother almost, for as such the hearty kindly girl showed herself to them, but at home she was alone, farouche and intractable, and did battle with the governesses, and overcame them one after another. I break the promise of a former page, and am obliged to describe the youthful days of more than one person who is to take a share in this story. Not always doth the writer know whither the divine muse leadeth him, but of this, be sure, she is as inexorable as truth. We must tell our tale as she imparts it to us, and go on or turn aside at her bidding. Here she ordains that we should speak of other members of the family whose history we chronicle, and it behooves us to say a word regarding the Earl of Kew, the head of the noble house into which Sir Brian Newcomb had married.
When we read in the fairy stories that the king and queen, who lived once upon a time, build a castle of steel, defended by moats and sentinels innumerable, in which they place their darling only child, the prince or princess, whose birth has blessed them after so many years of marriage, and whose christening feast has been interrupted by the cantankerous humor of that notorious old fairy who always persists in coming, although she has not received any invitation to the baptismal ceremony, When Prince Prettyman is locked up in the steel tower, provided only with the most wholesome food, the most edifying educational works, and the most venerable old tutor to instruct and to bore him, we know, as a matter of course, that the steel bolts and brazen bars one day will be of no avail.
The old tutor will go off in a doze, and the moats and drawbridges will either be passed by His Royal Highnesses and placable enemies, or crossed by the young Scape Grace himself, who is determined to outwit his guardians and see the wicked world. The old king and queen always come in and find the chambers empty, the saucy heir apparent flown, the porter and sentinels drunk, the ancient tutor asleep. They tear their venerable wigs in anguish, they kick the major-domo down stairs, they turn the duenna out of doors, the toothless old dragon. There is no resisting fate. The princess will slip out of window by the rope-latter, the prince will be off to pursue his pleasures, and sow his wild oats at the appointed season.
How many of our English princes have been coddled at home by their fond papas and mammas, walled up in inaccessible castles, with a tutor and a library, guarded by cordons of sentinels, sermoners, old aunts, old women from the world without, and have nevertheless escaped from all these guardians, and astonished the world by their extravagance and their frolics. What a wild rogue was that Prince Harry, son of the austere sovereign who robbed Richard II of his crown, the youth who took purses on Gad's Hill, frequented East Cheap Taverns with Colonel Falstaff and Worst Company, and boxed Chief Justice Gascoigne's ears. What must have been the venerable Queen Charlotte's state of mind when she heard of the courses of her beautiful young prince, of his punting at gambling tables, of his dealings with horse-jockeys, of his awful doings with Perdita?
Besides instances taken from our royal family, could we not draw examples from our respected nobility? There was that young Lord Warwick, Mr. Addison's stepson. We know that his mother was severe, and his stepfather a most eloquent moralist, yet the young gentleman's career was shocking, positively shocking. He boxed the watch, he fuddled himself at taverns, he was no better than a mohawk. The chronicles of that day contain accounts of many a mad prank which he played, as we have legends of a still earlier date of the lawless freaks of the Wild Prince and Pawns. Our people has never looked very unkindly on these frolics. A young nobleman, full of life and spirits, generous of his money, jovial in his humor, ready with his sword, frank, handsome, prodigal, courageous, always finds favor.
Young scapegrace rides a steeplechaser, beats a bargeman, and the crowd applauds him. Sarges and seniors shake their heads and look at him not unkindly. Even stern old female moralists are disarmed at the sight of youth and gallantry and beauty. I know very well that Charles Service is a sad dog, and Tom Jones know better than he should be. But in spite of such critics as Dr. Johnson and Colonel Newcomb, most of us have a sneaking regard for honest Tom, and hope Sophia will be happy, and Tom will end well at last. Five-and-twenty years ago, the young Earl of Kew came upon the town, which speedily rang with the feats of his lordship. He began life time enough to enjoy certain pleasures from which our young aristocracy of the present day seem, alas, to be cut off.
So much more peaceable and polished do we grow, so much does the spirit of the age appear to equalize all ranks, so strongly has the good sense of society, to which, in the end, gentlemen of the very highest fashion must bow, put its veto upon practices and amusements with which our fathers were familiar. At that time, the Sunday newspapers contained many and many exciting reports of boxing matches. Bruising was considered a fine manly old English custom. Boys at public schools fondly perused histories of the noble science from the redoubtable days of Broughton and Slack to the heroic times of Dutch Sam and the Game Chicken. Young gentlemen went eagerly to Molesy to see the slasher punch the pet's head or the negro beat the Jew's nose to a jelly.
The island rang as yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail coaches. A gay sight was the road in merry England in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostilery and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. Whoever thought of writing to the Times then? Biffin, I warned, did not grudge his money, and a thirsty soul paid cheerfully for his drink. The road was an institution. The ring was an institution. Men rallied round them, and not without a kind conservatism, expatiated upon the benefits with which they endowed the country and the evils which would occur when they should be no more.
Decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth and so forth. To give and to take a black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman. To drive a stagecoach the enjoyment to the emulation of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of the present time who aspires to take the place of a stoker? You see occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old drag with a lonely driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling quicksilver, O swift defiance? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away. Just at the ending of that old time, Lord Q's life began. That kindly middle-aged gentleman whom his county knows that good landlord friend in all of his tenantry round about, that builder of churches and indefatigable visitor of schools, that writer of letters to the farmers of his shire, so full of sense and benevolence, who wins prizes at agricultural shows and even lectures at county-town institutes in his modest, pleasant way, was the wild young Lord Q of a quarter of a century back, who kept racehorses, patronized boxers, fought a duel, thrashed a lifeguardsman, gambled furiously at Crockford's, and did who knows what besides.
His mother, a devout lady, nursed her son and his property carefully during the young gentleman's minority, keeping him and his younger brother away from all mischief, under the eyes of the most careful pastors and masters. She learned Latin with the boys. She taught them to play on the piano. She enraged old lady Q, the children's grandmother, who prophesied that her daughter-in-law would make milksops of her sons, to whom the old lady was never reconciled until after my lord's entry at Christchurch, where he began to distinguish himself very soon after his first term. He drove tandems, kept hunters, gave dinners, scandalized the dean, screwed up the tutor's door, and agonized his mother at home by his lawless proceedings.
He quitted the university after a very brief sojourn at that seat of learning. It may be the Oxford authorities requested his lordship to retire, let bygones be bygones. His youthful son, the present Lord Walham, is now at Christchurch, reading with the greatest assiduity. Let us not be too particular in narrating his father's unedifying frolics of a quarter of a century ago. Old Lady Q, who, in conjunction with Mrs. Newcomb, had made the marriage between Mr. Brian Newcomb and her daughter, always despised her son-in-law. And being a frank, open person, uttering her mind always, took little pains to conceal her opinion regarding him or any other individual. Sir Brian Newcomb, she would say, is one of the most stupid and respectable- Anne is clever, but has not a grain of common sense.
They make a very well-assorted couple. Her flightiness would have driven any man crazy who had an opinion of his own. She would have ruined any poor man of her own rank. As it is, I have given her a husband exactly suited for her. He pays the bills, does not see how absurd she is, keeps order in the establishment, and checks her follies. She wanted to marry her cousin, Tom Points, when they were both very young, and proposed to die of a broken heart when I arranged her match with Mr. Newcomb. A broken fiddlestick. She would have ruined Tom Points in a year, and has no more idea of the cost of a leg of mutton than I have of algebra. The Countess of Kew loved Brighton, and preferred living there even at the season when Londoners find such a special charm in their own city.
London after Easter, the old lady said, was intolerable. Pleasure becomes a business, then so oppressive that all good company is destroyed by it. Half the men are sick with the feasts which they eat day after day. The women are thinking of the half-dozen parties they have to go to in the course of the night. The young girls are thinking of their partners and the toilettes. Intimacy becomes impossible, and quiet enjoyment of life. On the other hand, the crowd of bourgeois has not invaded Brighton. The drive is not blocked up by flies full of stockbroke as wives and children, and you can So Lady Q's name was usually amongst the earliest which the Brighton newspapers recorded amongst the arrivals.
Her only unmarried daughter, Lady Julia, lived with her ladyship. Poor Lady Julia had suffered early from a spine disease which had kept her for many years to her couch. Being always at home and under her mother's eye, she was the old lady's victim, her pincushion, into which Lady Q plunged a hundred little points of sarcasm daily. As children are sometimes brought before magistrates, and their poor little backs and shoulders laid bare, covered with bruises and lashes which brutal parents have inflicted, so I dare say, if there had been any tribunal or judge before whom this poor patient lady's heart could have been exposed, it would have been found scarred all over with numberless ancient wounds and bleeding from yesterday's castigation.
Old Lady Q's tongue was a dreadful thong which made numbers of people wince. She was not altogether cruel, but she knew the dexterity with which she wielded her lash, and liked to exercise it. Poor Lady Julia was always at hand when her mother was minded to try her powers. Lady Q had just made herself comfortable at Brighton when her little grandson's illness brought Lady Anne Newcomb and her family down to the sea. Lady Q was almost scared back to London again, or blown over the water to deep. She had never had the measles. Why did not Anne carry the child to some other place? Julia, you will on no account go and see that little pestiferous swarm of Newcombs unless you want to send me out of the world, which I dare say you do, for I am a dreadful plague to you, I know, and my death would be a release to you.
You see, Dr. H, who visits the child every day, cries poor Pincushion. You are not afraid when he comes. Dr. H. Dr. H comes to cure me, or to tell me the news, or to flatter me, or to feel my pulse, and to pretend to prescribe or to take his guinea. Of course Dr. H must go to see all sorts of people and all sorts of diseases. You would not have me be such a brute as to order him not to attend my own grandson. I forbid you to go to Anne's house. You will send one of the men every day to inquire. Let the groom go. Yes, Charles. He will not go into the house. He will ring the bell and wait outside. He had better ring the bell at the area, I suppose there is an area, and speak to the servants through the bars and bring us word how Alfred is.
Poor Pincushion felt fresh compunctions. She had met the children and kissed the baby and held kind Ethel's hand in hers that day as she was out in her chair. There was no use, however, to make this confession. Is she the only good woman or man of whom domestic tyranny has made a hypocrite? Charles, the groom, brings back perfectly favorable reports of Master Alfred's health that day, which Dr. H., in the course of his visit, confirms. The child is getting well rapidly, eating like a little ogre. His cousin, Lord Q., has been to see him. He is the kindest of men, Lord Q. He brought the little man, Tom and Jerry, with the pictures. The boy is delighted with the pictures. Why has not Q. come to see me?
When did he come? Write him a note and send for him instantly, Julia. Did you know he was here?" Julia says that she had but the moment read in the Brighton papers the arrival of the Earl of Kew and the Honorable J. Belsize at the Albion. "'I am sure they are here for some mischief,' cries the old lady, delighted. "'Whenever George and John Belsize are together, I know there is some wickedness planning.' What do you know, Doctor? I see by your face you know something. Do tell me that I may write it to his odious psalm-singing mother. Dr. H.'s face does indeed wear a knowing look. He simpers and says, I did see Lord Q driving this morning, first with the Honorable Mr. Belsize, and afterwards...
Here he glances towards Lady Julia, as if to say, before an unmarried lady, I do not like to tell your ladyship with whom I saw Lord Q driving, after he had left the Honorable Mr. Belsize, who went to play a match with Captain Huxtable at tents. Are you afraid to speak before Julia? cries the elder lady. Why, bless my soul, she is forty years old and has heard everything that can be heard. Tell me about Q this instant, Dr. H. The doctor blandly acknowledges that Lord Q had been driving Madame Pazzo Profondo, the famous contralto of the Italian opera, in his Phaeton for two hours in the face of Albrighton. Yes, doctor, interposes Lady Julia, blushing. But Signior Pazzo Profondo was in the carriage, too, sitting behind with the groom.
He was indeed, mamma. Julia, v'onets combat, says Lady Q, shrugging her shoulders and looking at her daughter from under her bushy black eyebrows. Her ladyship, a sister of the late lamented Marquis of Steyn, possessed no small share of the wit and intelligence, and a considerable resemblance to the features of that distinguished nobleman. Lady Q bids her daughter take a pen and write. le mauvais sujet. Gentlemen who wish to take the sea air in private or to avoid their relations had best go to other places than Brighton, where their names are printed in the newspapers. If you are not drowned in a pozzo... Mama," interposes the secretary, "'in a pozzo profondo you will please come to dine with two old women at half-past seven.
You may bring Mr. Belsize and must tell us a hundred stories. Yours, etc., L. Q.' Julia wrote all the letter as her mother dictated it, save only one sentence, and the note was sealed and dispatched to my lord Q, who came to dinner with Jack Belsize. Jack Belsize liked to dine with Lady Q. He said she was an old dare and the wickedest old woman in all England, and he liked to dine with Lady Julia, who was a poor suffering dare and the best woman in all England. Jack Belsize liked everyone, and everyone liked him. Two evenings afterwards, the young men repeated their visit to Lady Q, and this time Lord Q was loud in praises of his cousins of the House of Newcombe. "'Not of the eldest barn, surely, my dear?' cries Lady Q.
"'No confound him nut barns!' No dammit, not Barnes. I beg your pardon, Lady Julia, broke in Jack Belsize. I can get on with most men, but that little Barney is too odious a little snob. A little what, Mr. Belsize? A little snob, ma'am. I have no other word, though he is your grandson. I never heard him say a good word of any mortal soul or do a kind action. Thank you, Mr. Bell sighs, says the lady. But the others are capital. There is that little chap who has just had the measles. He's a clear little brick. And as for Miss Ethel... Ethel is a Trump, ma'am, says Lord Q, slapping his hand on his knee. Ethel is a brick, and Alfred is a Trump, I think you say, remarks Lady Q, nodding approval. And Vons is a snob.
This is very satisfactory to know. "'We met the children out today,' cried the enthusiastic Q, "'as I was driving Jack in the drag, and I got out and talked to him.' "'Governess and uncommonly nice woman, oldish, but I beg your pardon, Lady Julia,' cries the inopportune Jack Belsize. "'I'm always putting my foot in it.'" "'Putting your foot into what? Go on, Q.'" "'Well, we met the old posse of children, and the little fellow wanted to drive, and I said I would drive him, and Ethel too, if she would come.'" Upon my word, she is as pretty a girl as you can see on a summer's day. And the governess said, No, of course, governesses always do. But I said I was her uncle, and Jack paid her such a fine compliment that the young woman was mollified, and the children took their seats beside me, and Jack went behind.
Where, Major Potso Profondo sits, Bon. We drove on to the Downs, and we were nearly coming to grief. My horses are young, and when they get on the grass, they are as if they were mad. It was very wrong, I know it was. "'Damned rash,' interposes Jack. "'He had nearly broken all our necks.' "'And my brother Frank would have been Lord Q,' continued the young Earl, with a quiet smile. What an escape for him. "'The horses ran away ever so far, and I thought the carriage must upset. "'The poor little boy, who had lost his pluck in the fever, began to cry, "'but that young girl, though she was as white as a sheet, "'never gave up for a moment, and sat in her place like a man.' We met nothing, luckily, and I pulled the horses in after a mile or so, and I drove them into Brighton as quiet as if I'd been driving a hearse.
And that little trump of an Ethel, what do you think she said? She said, I was not frightened, but you must not tell Mama. My aunt, it appears, was in a dreadful commotion. I ought to have thought of that. Lady Yan is a ridiculous old dare. I beg your pardon, Lady Q. Here breaks in Jack the apologizer. There is a brother of Sir Brian Newcomb staying with them, Lord Q proceeds. An East India colonel, a very fine-looking old boy. Smokes awfully row about it in the hotel. Go on, Q, beg ya. This gentleman was on the lookout for us, it appears, for when we came at sight, he dispatched a boy who was with him, running like a lamplighter back to my aunt to say all was well. And he took little Alfred out of the carriage, and then helped out Ethel, and said, My dear, you are too pretty to scold, but you have given us all a belpour.
And then he made me and Jack a low bow, and stalked into the lodgings. I think you do deserve to be whipped, both of you, cries Lady Cume. We went up and made our peace with my aunt, and were presented in form to the Colonel and his youthful cub. As fine a fellow as ever I saw, and as fine a boy as ever I saw, cries Jack Billsize. The young chap was a great-handed drawing, upon my life the best drawings I ever saw. And he was making a picture for little what-you-call-em, and Miss Newcombe was looking over them, and Lady Anne pointed out the group to me, and said how pretty it was. She is uncommonly sentimental, you know, Lady Anne. My daughter Anne is the greatest fool in the Three Kingdoms, cried Lady Q, looking fiercely over her spectacles.
Aunt Julia was instructed to write that night to her sister, and desire that Ethel should be sent to see her grandmother. Ethel, who rebelled against her grandmother, and always fought in her Aunt Julia's side when the weaker was oppressed by the older and stronger lady.
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11 11 - Chapter 11: At Mrs. Ridley's 33:11
Ridley's. St. Peter of Alcantara, as I have read in A Life of St. Teresa, informed that devout lady that he had passed forty years of his life sleeping only an hour and a half each day. His cell was but four feet and a half long, so that he never lay down. His pillow was a wooden log in the stone wall. He ate but once in three days. He was for three years in a convent of his order without knowing any one of his brethren except by the sound of their voices, for he never during this period took his eyes off the ground. He always walked barefoot and was but skin and bone when he died. The eating only once in three days, so he told his sister saint, was by no means impossible if you began the regimen in your youth.
To conquer sleep was the hardest of all austerities which he practised. I fancy the pious individual so employed day after day, night after night, on his knees or standing up in devout meditation in the clipboard, his dwelling-place, bare-headed and bare-footed, walking over rocks, briars, mud, sharp stones, picking out the very worst places let us trust with his downcast eyes, Under the bitter snow, or the drifting rain, or the scorching sunshine. I fancy St. Peter of Alcantara, and contrast him with such a personage as the incumbent of Lady Whittlesey's Chapel, Mayfair. This hermitage is situated in Walpole Street, let us say, on the second floor of a quiet mansion, let out to hermits by a nobleman's butler, whose wife takes care of the lodgings.
His cells consist of a refectory, a dormitory, and an adjacent oratory, where he keeps his shower-bath and boots, the pretty boots, trimly stretched on boot-trees and black to a nicety, not varnished, by the boy who waits on him. The barefooted business may suit superstitious ages and gentlemen of Alcantara, but does not become mayfair in the nineteenth century. If St. Pedro walked the earth now with his eyes to the ground, he would know fashionable divines by the way in which they were shod. Charles Honeyman's is a sweet foot. I have no doubt as delicate and plump and rosy as the white hand with its two rings, which he passes in impassioned moments through his slender flaxen hair. A sweet odor pervades his sleeping apartment, Not that peculiar and delicious fragrance with which the saints of the Roman Church are said to gratify the neighborhood where they repose, but oils redolent of the richest perfumes of the Macassar, essences from Truffauts or Delacroix's, into which a thousand flowers have expressed their sweetest breath await his meek head unrising, and infuse the pocket-handkerchief with which he dries and draws so many tears.
For he cries a good deal in his sermons, to which the ladies about him contribute showers of sympathy. By his bedside are slippers lined with blue silk and worked of an ecclesiastical pattern by some of the faithful who sit at his feet. They come to him in anonymous parcels. They come to him in silver paper. Boys in buttons, pages who minister to female grace, leave them at the door for the Rev. C. Honeyman, and slip away without a word. Purses are sent to him, penwipers, a portfolio with the Honeyman arms, Yea, braces have been known to reach him by the post in his days of popularity, and flowers, and grapes, and jelly when he was ill, and throat comforters, and lajean juice for his dear bronchitis.
In one of his drawers is the rich silk cassock, presented to him by his congregation at Leatherhead, when the young curate quitted that parish for London duty, and on his breakfast-table the silver teapot, once filled with sovereigns and presented by the same devotees. The devo-teapot he has, but the sovereigns, where are they? What a different life this is from our honest friend of Alcantara, who eats once in three days. At one time, if Honeyman could have drunk tea three times in an evening, he might have had it. The glass in his chimney-piece is crowded with invitations, not merely cards of ceremony, of which there are plenty, but dear little confidential notes from sweet friends of his congregation.
"'Oh, dear Mr. Honeyman,' writes Blanche, "'what a sermon that was. I cannot go to bed tonight without thanking you for it.'" "'Do, do, dear Mr. Honeyman,' writes Beatrice, "'lend me that delightful sermon.' "'And can you come and drink tea with me and Selina and my aunt? Papa and Mama dine out, but you know I am always your faithful Chesterfield Street.' And so on. He has all the domestic accomplishments. He plays on the violoncello. He sings a delicious second, not only in sacred but in secular music. He has a thousand anecdotes, laughable riddles, droll stories of the utmost correctness you understand. with which he entertains females of all ages, suiting his conversation to stately matrons, devil dowagers who can hear his clear voice better than the loudest roar of their stupid sons-in-law, mature spinsters, young beauties dancing through the season, even rosy little slips out of the nursery who cluster round his beloved feet.
Societies fight for him to preach their charity sermon. You read in the papers, the Wapping Hospital for Wooden Lake Seamen. On Sunday the 23rd, sermons will be preached in behalf of this charity by the Lord Bishop of Tobago in the morning, in the afternoon by the Rev. C. Honeyman, A.M., incumbent of, etc. Clergymen's Grandmothers Fund. Sermons in aid of this admirable institution will be preached on Sunday, 4th May, by the very Rev. the Dean of Pimlico and the Rev. C. Honeyman, A.M. When the dean of Pimlico has his illness, many people think Honeyman will have the deanery, that he ought to have it, a hundred female voices vow and declare. Though it is said that a right reverend head at headquarters shakes dubiously when his name is mentioned for preferment.
His name is spread wide, and not only women but men come to hear him. Members of Parliament, even cabinet ministers, sit under him. Lord Dozily, of course, is seen in a front pew. Where was a public meeting without Lord Dozily? The men come away from his sermons and say, "'It's very pleasant, but I don't know what the deuce makes all you women crowd so to hear the man.' "'Oh, Charles, if you would but go oftener,' sighs Lady Anna Maria, "'can't you speak to the Home Secretary? Can't you do something for him?' "'We can ask him to dinner next Wednesday if you like,' says Charles. They say he's a pleasant fellow out of the wood. Besides, there is no use in doing anything for him, Charles goes on.
He can make less than a thousand a year out of his chapel, and that is better than anything anyone can give him. A thousand a year besides the rent of the wine vaults below the chapel. Don't, Charles, says his wife with a solemn look, don't ridicule things in that way. Confound it, there are wine vaults under the chapel, answers downright Charles. I saw the name, Sherrick & Co., offices, a green door, and a brass plate. It's better to sit over vaults with wine in them and coffins. I wonder whether it's the Sherrick with whom Q and Jack Belsize had that ugly row. What ugly row? Don't say ugly row. It's not a nice word to hear the children use. Go on, my darlings. What was the dispute of Lord Q and Mr.
Belsize and this Mr. Sherrick? It was all about pictures, and about horses, and about money, and about one other subject which enters into every row that I ever heard of. And what is that, dear? asked the innocent lady, hanging on her husband's arm, and quite pleased to have let him to church and brought him thence. And what is it that enters into every row, as you call it, Charles? A woman, my love, answers the gentleman behind whom we have been in imagination walking out from Charles Honeyman's church on a Sunday in June, as the whole pavement blooms with artificial flowers and fresh bonnets, as there is a buzz and crackle all around regarding the sermon, as carriages drive off, as lady dowagers walk home, as prayer books and footman sticks gleam in the sun, as little boys with baked mutton and potatoes pass from the courts, as children issue from the public houses with pots of beer, As the Reverend Charles Honeyman, who has been drawing tears in the sermon and has seen, not without complacent throbs, a secretary of state in the pew beneath him, divests himself of his rich silk cassock in the vestry before he walks away to his neighboring hermitage, where have we placed it in Walpole Street?
I wish St. Pedro of Alcantara could have some of that shoulder of mutton with the baked potatoes and a drink of that throffing beer. See yonder trots little Lord Dozily, who has been asleep for an hour with his head against the wood like St. Pedro of Alcantara. An East Indian gentleman and his son wait until the whole chapel is clear, and survey Lady Whittlesey's monument at their leisure, and other hideous slabs erected in memory of defunct frequenters of the chapel. Whose was that face which Colonel Newcomb thought he recognized, that of a stout man who came down from the organ gallery? Could it be Broth, the bass singer, who delivered the Red Cross Knight with such applause at the Cave of Melody, and who has been singing in this place?
There are some chapels in London where, the function over, one almost expects to see the sextons put brown hollands over the pews and galleries, as they do with the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. The writer of these voracious pages was once walking through a splendid English palace standing amidst parks and gardens than which none more magnificent has been seen since the days of Aladdin, in company with a melancholy friend who viewed all things darkly through his gloomy eyes. The housekeeper pattering on before us from chamber to chamber was expatiating upon the magnificence of this picture, the beauty of that statue, the marvelous richness of these hangings and carpets, the admirable likeness of the late Marquis by Sir Thomas, of his father, the fifth Earl by Sir Joshua, and so on.
When in the very richest room of the whole castle, Hicks, such was my melancholy companion's name, stopped the Cicerone in her prattle, saying in a hollow voice, And now, madam, will you show us the closet where the skeleton is? The seared functionary paused in the middle of her harangue. That article was not inserted in the catalogue, which she daily utters to visitors for their half-crown. Next question brought a darkness down upon the hall where we were standing. We did not see the room, and yet I have no doubt there is such a one. And ever after, when I have thought of the splendid castle towering in the midst of shady trees under which the dappled deer are browsing, of the terraces gleaming with statues and bright with a hundred thousand flowers, of the bridges and shining fountains and rivers wherein the castle windows reflect their festive gleams, when the halls are filled with happy feasters and over the darkling woods comes the sound of music, always, I say, when I think of Castle Bluebeard, It is to think of that dark little closet which I know is there, and which the lordly owner opens shuddering after midnight when he is sleepless and must go unlock it, when the palace is hushed, when beauties are sleeping around him unconscious, and revelers are at rest.
O Mrs. Housekeeper, all the other keys hast thou, but that key thou hast not. Have we not all such closets, my jolly friend, as well as the noble Marquis of Carabas? At night, when all the house is asleep but you, don't you get up and peep into yours. When you and your turn are slumbering, up gets Mrs. Brown from your side, steals downstairs like a Mina to her ghoul, clicks open the secret door, and looks into her dark depository. Did she tell you of that little affair with Smith long before she knew you? Psh! Who knows anyone save himself alone? Who, when showing his house to the closest and dearest, doesn't keep back the key of a closet or two? I think of a lovely reader laying down the page and looking over at her unconscious husband to sleep perhaps after dinner.
Yes, madam, a closet he hath, and you who pry into everything shall never have the key of it. I think of some honest Othello pausing over this very sentence in a railroad carriage and stealthily gazing at Desdemona opposite to him, innocently administering sandwiches to their little boy. I am trying to turn off the sentence with a joke, you see. I feel it is growing too dreadful, too serious. And to what, pray, do these serious, these disagreeable, these almost personal observations tend? To this, simply, that Charles Honeyman, the beloved and popular preacher, the elegant divine to whom Miss Blanche writes sonnets, and whom Miss Beatrice invites to tea, who comes with smiles on his lip, gentle sympathy in his tones, innocent gaiety in his accent, who melts, rouses, terrifies in the pulpit, who charms over the tea-urn and the bland bread-and-butter, Charles Honeyman has one or two skeleton closets in his lodgings.
Walpole Street, Mayfair. And many a wakeful night, whilst Mrs. Ridley, his landlady, and her tired husband, the nobleman's majordomo, whilst the lodger on the first floor, whilst the cook and housemaid and weary little boot-boy are at rest—mind you, they have all got their closets, which they open with their skeleton keys—he wakes up and looks at the ghastly occupant of that receptacle. One of the Reverend Charles Honeyman's grisly night-haunters is, but stop, let us give a little account of the lodgings and of some of the people frequenting the same. First floor, Mr. Bagshot. Member for a Norfolk borough. Stout jolly gentleman dines at the Carlton Club, greatly addicted to Greenwich and Richmond in the season.
Bets in a moderate way, does not go into society, except now and again to the chiefs of his party when they give great entertainments. And once or twice to the houses of great country dons who dwell near him in the country. Is not a very good family. Was in fact an apothecary, married to a woman with money much older than himself, who does not like London and stops at home in Huntingham, not much to the displeasure of Bagshot. Gives every now and then nice little quiet dinners, which Mrs. Ridley cooks admirably to exceedingly stupid, jolly old parliamentary fogies who absorb with much silence and cheerfulness a vast quantity of wine. They have just begun to drink twenty-four claret now, that of fifteen being scarce and almost drunk up.
Writes daily, and hears every morning for Mrs. Bagshot. Does not read her letters always, and does not rise till long past eleven o'clock. The house is a Norfolk house. Mrs. Ridley was housekeeper to the great Squire Bayham, who had the estate before the Conqueror and who came to such a dreadful crash in the year 1825, the year of the Panic. Bayham still belongs to the family, but in what estate, as those can say who recollect it in its palmy days. Fifteen hundred acres of the best land in England were sold off. All the timber cut down as level as a billiard board. Mr. Bayham now lives up in one corner of the house, which used to be filled with the finest company in Europe. Law bless you! The Bayhams have seen almost all the nobility of England come in and go out, and were gentle folks when many a fine lord's father of the present day was sweeping a counting-house.
The house will hold genteelly no more than these two inmates, but in the season it manages to accommodate Miss Cann, who too was from Bayhams, having been a governess there to the young lady who is dead, and who now makes such a livelihood as she can best raise by going out as a daily teacher. Miss Cann dines with Mrs. Ridley in the adjoining little back parlour. Ridley but seldom can be spared to partake of the family dinner, his duties in the house, and about the person of my lord Todd Morden keeping him constantly near that nobleman. How little Miss Cann can go on and keep alive on the chrome she eats for breakfast and the scrap she picks at dinner do astonish Mrs. Ridley that it do. She declares that the two canary-birds encaged in her window, whence as a cheerful prospect the back of Lady Whittlesey's chapel, eat more than Miss Cann.
The two birds set up a tremendous singing and chorusing when Miss Cannes, spying the occasion of the first-floor lodger's absence, begins practicing her music pieces. Such trills, roulades, and flourishes go on from the birds and the lodger. It is a wonder how any fingers can move over the jingling ivory so quickly as Miss Cannes. Excellent a woman as she is, admirably virtuous, frugal, brisk, honest, and cheerful, I would not like to live in lodgings where there was a lady so addicted to playing variations. No more just Honeyman. On a Saturday, when he is composing his valuable sermons, the rogue, you may be sure, leaves his work to the last day, and there are, I am given to understand, among the clergy many better men than Honeyman, who are as dilatory as he.
He begs, he entreats with tears in his eyes, that Miss Kan's music may cease. I would back little Kan to write a sermon against him, for all his reputation is a popular preacher. Old and weazened as that piano is, feeble and cracked her voice, it is wonderful what a pleasant concert she can give in that parlor of a Saturday evening to Mrs. Ridley, who generally dozes a good deal, and to a lad who listens with all his soul, with tears sometimes in his great eyes, with crowding fancies filling his brain and throbbing at his heart, as the artist plies her humble instrument. She plays old music of Handel and Haydn, and the little chamber non swells into a cathedral, and he who listens beholds altars lighted, priests ministering, fair children swinging censers, great aureole windows gleaming in sunset, and seen through arched columns and avenues of twilight marble.
The young fellow who hears her has been often and often to the opera and the theatres. As she plays Don Juan, Xerlena comes tripping over the meadows, and Macedo, after her, with a crowd of peasants and maidens, And they sing the sweetest of all music, and the heart beats with happiness and kindness and pleasure. Piano pianissimo. The city is hushed. The towers of the great cathedral rise in the distance, its spires lighted by the broad moon. The statues in the moonlit place cast long shadows athwart the pavement, but the fountain in the midst is dressed out like Cinderella for the night, and sings and wears a crest of diamonds. That great somber street all in shade. Can it be the famous Toledo?
Or is it the Corso? Or is it the great street in Madrid, the one which leads to the Escurio where the Rubens and Velázquez are? It is Fancy Street, Poetry Street, Imagination Street, the street where lovely ladies look from balconies, where cavaliers strike mandolins and draw swords and engage, where long processions pass and venerable hermits with long beards bless the kneeling people, where the rude soldier is swaggering through the place with flags and halberds. And fife and dance, seize the slim wastes of the daughters of the people, and bid the Pivirari play to their dancing. Blow bagpipes, a storm of harmony, become trumpets, trombones, Ophacledes, fiddles, and bassoons. Fire guns, sound Tosines, shout people, louder, shriller, and sweeter than all, sing thou, ravishing heroine.
And see on his cream-colored charger, Massanillo prances in, and Fra Diabolo leaps down the balcony, carabine in hand, and Sir Juan of Bordeaux sails up to the quay with the sultan's daughter of Babylon. All these delights and sights, and joys and glories, these thrills of sympathy, movements of unknown longing, and visions of beauty, a young sickly lad of eighteen enjoys in a little dark room where there is a bed disguised in the shape of a wardrobe, and a little old woman is playing under a gas lamp on the jingling keys of an old piano. For a long time, Mr. Samuel Ridley, butler and confidential valet to the Right Honorable John James Baron Todd Morden, was in a state of the greatest despair and gloom about his only son, the little John James, a sickly and almost deformed child, of whom there was no making no think, as Mr.
Ridley said. His figure precluded him from following his father's profession and waiting upon the British nobility, who naturally require large and handsome men to skip up behind their rolling carriages and hand their plates at dinner. When John James was six years old, his father remarked with tears in his eyes he wasn't higher than a plate-basket. The boys jeered at him in the streets. Some whopped him, spite of his diminutive size. At school he made but little progress. He was always sickly and dirty and timid and crying, whimpering in the kitchen away from his mother, who, though she loved him, took Mr. Ridley's view of his character and thought him little better than an idiot until such time as little Miss Cannes took him in hand, when at length there was some hope of him.
Half-witted, you great stupid big man, says Miss Cannes, who had a fine spirit of her own. That boy half-witted. He has got more wit in his little finger than you have in all your great person. You are a very good man, Ridley, very good-natured, I'm sure, and bear with the teasing of a wash-wish old woman, but you are not the wisest of mankind. Don't tell me. You know you spell out the words when you read the newspaper still, and what would your bills look like if I did not write them in my nice little hand? I tell you, that boy is a genius. I tell you that one day the world will hear of him. His heart is made of pure gold. You think that all the wit belongs to the big people. Look at me, you great tall man.
Am I not a hundred times cleverer than you are? Yes, and John James is worth a thousand such insignificant little chits as I am, and he is as tall as me too, sir. Do you hear that? One day I am determined he shall dine at Lord Todd Morton's table, and he shall get the prize at the Royal Academy and be famous, sir. Famous. Well, Miss C., I wish he may get it, that's all I say," answers Mr. Ridley. The poor fellow does no harm, that I acknowledge, but I never see the good he was up to yet. I wish he'd begin it. I do wish he would now. And the honest gentleman relapses into the study of his paper. All those beautiful sounds and thoughts which Miss Cannes conveys to him out of her charmed piano, the young artist straightway translates into forms.
And knights in armor with plume and shield and battle-axe, and splendid young noblemen with flowing ringlets and bounteous plumes of feathers and rapiers and russet boots, and fierce banditti with crimson tights, doublets profusely illustrated with large brass buttons, and the dumpy basket-hilted claymores known to be the favorite weapon with which these whiskered ruffians do battle. Wasp-wasted peasant girls and young countesses with, oh, such large eyes and the lips. All these splendid forms of war and beauty crowd to the young draftman's pencil. and cover letterbacks, copybooks without end. If his hand strikes off some face peculiarly lovely, and to his taste some fair vision that has shone in his imagination, some hoo-ree of a dancer, some bright young lady of fashion in an opera box, whom he has seen, or fancied he has seen, for the youth is short-sighted, though he hardly as yet knows his misfortune, If he has made some effort extraordinarily successful, our young Pygmalion hides away the masterpiece, and he paints the beauty with all his skill.
The lips a bright carmine, the eyes a deep, deep cobalt, the cheeks a dazzling vermilion, the ringlets of a golden hue. And he worships this sweet creature of his in secret, fancies a history for her, a castle to storm, a tired usurper who keeps her imprisoned, and a prince in black ringlets and a spangled cloak. Who scales the tower, who slays the tyrant, and then kneels gracefully at the princess's feet and says, Lady, wilt thou be mine? There is a kind lady in the neighborhood who takes in dressmaking for the neighboring maidservants, and has a small establishment of lollipops, theatrical characters, and ginger beer for the boys in little crags buildings, hard by the running footman public house, where father and other gentleman's gentlemen have their club.
This good soul also sells Sunday newspapers to the footmen of the neighboring gentry. and besides has a stock of novels for the ladies of the upper servants' table. Next to Miss Cann, Miss Flinders is John James's greatest friend and benefactor. She has remarked him when he was quite a little man and used to bring his father's beer of a Sunday. Out of her novels he has taught himself to read, dull boy at the day-school though he was, and always the last in his class there. Hours, happy hours, has he spent cowering behind her counter or hugging her books under his pinafore when he had leave to carry them home. The whole library has passed through his hands, his long, lean, tremulous hands, and under his eager eyes.
He has made illustrations to every one of those books, and has been frightened of his own pictures of Manfrone or the one-handed monk, Avellino, the terrific Bravo of Venice, and Rinaldo Rinaldini, captain of robbers. How he has blistered Thaddeus of Warsaw with his tears, and drawn him in his Polish cap and tights, and Hessians, William Wallace, the hero of Scotland, how nobly he has depicted him! With what whiskers and bushy ostrich plumes in a tight kilt, and with what magnificent calves to his legs, laying about him with his battle-axe and bestriding the bodies of King Edward's prostrate cavaliers. At this time Mr. Honeyman comes to lodge in Walpole Street, and brings a set of Scots novels, for which he subscribed when in Oxford.
And young John James, who at first waits upon him and does little odd jobs for the Reverend Gentleman, lights upon the volumes and reads them with such a delight and passion of pleasure as all the delights of future days will scarce equal. A fool, is he. An idle feller out of whom no good will ever come, as his father says. There was a time when, in despair of any better chance for him, his parents thought of apprenticing him to a tailor, and John James was waked up from a dream of Rebecca, and informed of the cruelty meditated against him. I forbear to describe the tears in terror and frantic desperation in which the poor boy was plunged. Little Miss Cann rescued him from that awful board, and Honeyman likewise interceded for him, and Mr.
Bagshot promised that as soon as his party came in, he would ask the minister for a tied waitership for him, for everybody liked the solemn, soft-hearted, willing little lad, and no one knew him less than his pompous and stupid and respectable father. Miss Cann painted flowers and card screens elegantly, and finished pencil drawings most elaborately for her pupils. She could copy prints so that at a little distance you would scarcely know that the copy in stumped chalk was not a bad Mezzotino engraving. She even had a little old paint box and showed you one or two ivory miniatures out of the drawer. She gave John James what little knowledge of drawing she had and handed him over her invaluable recipes for mixing watercolors, for trees and foregrounds, burnt sienna and indigo, for very dark foliage, ivory black and gamboge, for flesh color, etc., etc.
John James went through her poor little course, but not so brilliantly as she expected. She was forced to own that several of her pupils' pieces were executed much more dexterously than Johnny Ridley's. Honeyman looked at the boy's drawings from time to time and said, Very clever, a great deal of fancy, really. But Honeyman knew no more of the subject than a deaf and dumb man knows of music. He could talk the art cant very glibly and had a set of Morgans and Madonnas, as became a clergyman and a man of taste, but he saw not with eyes such as those wherewith heaven had endowed the humble little butler's boy, to whom splendors of nature were revealed to vulgar sights invisible, and beauties manifest in forms, colors, shadows of common objects where most of the world saw only what was dull and gross and familiar.
One reads in the magic story-books of a charm or a flower which the wizard gives and which enables the bearer to see the fairies. O enchanting boon of nature which reveals to the possessor the hidden spirits of beauty round about him, spirits which the strongest and most gifted masters compel into painting or song. To others it is granted but to have fleeting glimpses of that fair art world, and tempted by ambition, or barred by faint-heartedness, or driven by necessity, to turn away thence to the vulgar life-track and the light of common day. The reader who has passed through Walpole Street scores of times knows the discomfortable architecture of all, save the great houses built in Queen Anne's and George I's time.
And while some of the neighboring streets, to which Great Crag Street, Bolingbroke Street, and others contain mansions fairly coped with stone, with little obelisks before the doors, and great extinguishers wherein the torches of the nobility's running footmen were put out a hundred and thirty or forty years ago, houses which still remain abodes of the quality, and where you shall see a hundred carriages gather of a public knight. Walpole Street has quite faded away into lodgings, private hotels, doctors' houses, and the like. Nor is No. 23, Ridley's, by any means the best house in the street. The parlor, furnished and tenanted by Miss Cannes, as has been described, the first floor, Bagshot Esquire, M.P., the second floor, Honeyman, what remains but the garrets and the ample staircase and the kitchens, and the family being all put to bed, how can you imagine there is room for any more inhabitants?
And yet there is one lodger more, and one who, like almost all the other personages mentioned up to the present time, and some of whom you have no idea yet, will play a definite part in the ensuing history. At night, when Honeyman comes in, he finds on the hall table three wax bedroom candles, his own, Bag Shots, and another. As for Miss Cann, she is locked into the parlour in bed long ago, her stout little walking shoes being on the mat at the door. At twelve o'clock noon, sometimes at one, nay, at two and three, long after Backshot has gone to his committee and little can to her pupils, a voice issues from the very topmost floor, from a room where there is no bell. A voice of thunder calling out, Slave, Julia, Julia, my love, Mrs.
Ridley. And this summons not being obeyed, it will not unfrequently happen that a pair of trousers, enclosing a pair of boots with iron heels, and known by the name of the celebrated Prussian general who came up to help with the other Christian-Europe boots at Waterloo, will be flung down from the topmost story, even to the marble floor of the resounding hall. Then the boy Thomas, otherwise called Slavey, may say, there he goes again, or Mrs. Ridley's own back-parlor bell rings vehemently, and Julia the cook will exclaim, La harts, Mr. Frederick. If the breeches and boots are not understood, the owner himself appears in great wrath, dancing on the upper story, dancing down to the lower floor, and loosely enveloped in a ragged and flowing Robe de Chambere.
In this costume and condition, he will dance into Honeyman's apartment, where that meek divine may be sitting with a headache or over a novel or a newspaper, dance up to the fire flapping his robe-tails, poke it, and warm himself there. Dance up to the cupboard where his reverence keeps his sherry, and help himself to a glass. He will say. He's toward you, my buck. I know as the tap. Derek's masala, bottled three months after date at 246 shillings the dozen. Indeed, indeed it's not. And now we are coming to an idea of the skeleton in Four Honeyman's closet. Not that this huge, handsome, jolly Fred Bam is the skeleton. Far from it. Mr. Frederick weighs 14 stone. Indeed, indeed it isn't, Fred, I'm sure, sighs the other.
You exaggerate. Indeed you do. The wine is not dear, not by any means so expensive as you say. How much a glass, thank you, says Fred, filling another bumper. A half-crown, thank you. A half-crown, honeyman. My cock and pie is not worth a bender. He says this in the manner of the most celebrated tradigian of the day. He can imitate any actor, tragic or comic, any known parliamentary orator or clergyman, any saw, cock, cloop of a cork, wrench from a bottle, and guggling of wine into the decanter afterwards, bee-buzzing, little boy up a chimney, etc. He imitates people being ill on board a steam packet so well that he makes you die of laughing. His uncle, the bishop, could not resist this comic exhibition and gave Fred a check for a comfortable sum of money.
And Fred, getting cash for the check at the Cave of Harmony, imitated his uncle the bishop and his chaplain, winding up with his lordship and chaplain being unwell at sea. The chaplain and bishop, quite natural and distinct. How much does a glass of this sack cost there, Charlie? Resumes Fred after this parenthesis. You say it is not dear Charles Honeyman. You had even from your youth up a villainous habit. And I perfectly well remember, sir, in boyhood's breezy hour, when I was the delight of his school that you used to tell lies to your venerable father. You did, Charles. Excuse the frankness of an early friend. It's my belief you'd rather lie than not. Hmm. He looks at the cards in the chimney glass.
Invitations to dinner, proffers of muffins. Do lend me your sermon. Oh, you old imposter, you hoary old aniasis. I say, Charlie, why haven't you picked out some nice girl of yours truly? One with lords and beeves with rents and consuls, mark you. I have no money, it's true, but then I don't owe as much as you. I'm a handsomer man than you are. Look at his chest. He slaps it. These limbs, they are manly, sir. Manly. For heaven's sake, Bayham, cries Mr. Honeyman, white with terror. If anybody were to come... What did I say anon, sir? I was manly. Aye, manly. Let any ruffian save a bailiff come and meet the dowdy arm of Frederick Bayham. Oh, Lord, Lord, here's somebody coming into the room, cries Charles, sinking back on the sofa as the door opens.
Ha! Dost thou come with murderous intent? And he now advances in an approved offensive attitude. "'Tight of come on, come on!' And he walks off with a tragic laugh, crying, "'Tis but the Slavee!' The Slavee has Mr. Frederick's hot water and a bottle of soda water on the same tray. He has been instructed to bring soda whenever he hears the word Slavee pronounced from above. The bottle explodes, and Frederick drinks, and hisses after his drink as though he had been all hot within. "'What's a clock now, Slavee? Half past three?' Let me see. I breakfasted exactly ten hours ago in the rosy morning off a modest cup of coffee in Covent Garden Market. Coffee, a penny, a bread, a simple halfpenny. What is Mrs.
Ridley for dinner? Please, sir, roast pork. Get me some. Bring it into my room, unless, honeyman, you insist upon my having it here, kind fellow. At the moment, a smart knock comes to the door, and Fred says, Well, Charles, it may be a friend or a lady come to confess, and I'm off. I knew you'd be sorry I was going. "'Tom, bring up my things, brush em gently, you scoundrel, and don't take the nap off. Bring up the roast pork and plenty of applesauce. Tell Mrs. Ridley with my love in one of Mr. Honeyman's shirts and one of his razors. Adieu, Charles. Amend. Remember me.' And he vanishes into the upper chambers.
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12 12 - Chapter 12: In which everybody is asked to Dinner 20:33
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 12, in which everybody is asked to dinner.
John James had opened the door, hastening to welcome a friend and patron, the sight of whom always gladdened the youth's eyes, no other than Clive Newcomb, in young Ridley's opinion, the most splendid, fortunate, beautiful, high-born, and gifted youth this island contained. What generous boy in his time has not worshipped somebody? Before the female enslaver makes her appearance, every lad has a friend of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in vacation, whom he cherishes in his heart of hearts, whose sister he proposes to marry in afterlife, whose purse he shares, for whom he will take a thrashing, if need be, who is his hero. Clive was John James's youthful divinity.
When he wanted to draw Thaddeus of Warsaw, a prince, Ivanhoe, or some one splendid and egregious, it was Clive he took for a model. His heart leaped when he saw the young fellow. He would walk cheerfully to Greyfriars with a letter or message for Clive, on the chance of seeing him and getting a kind word from him, or a shake of the hand. An ex-butler of Lord Todd Morden was a pensioner in the Greyfriars' hospital. It has been said that at that ancient establishment is a college for old men as well as for boys, and this old man would come sometimes to his successor's Sunday dinner, and grumble from the hour of that meal until nine o'clock, when he was forced to depart, so as to be within Greyfriars' gates before ten.
Grumble about his dinner, grumble about his beer, grumble about the number of chapels he had to attend, about the gown he wore, about the master's treatment of him, about the want of plums in the pudding, as old men and schoolboys grumble. It was wonderful what a liking John James took to this odious, querulous, graceless, stupid, and snuffy old man, and how he would find pretexts for visiting him at his lodging in the old hospital. He actually took that journey that he might have a chance of seeing Clive. He sent Clive notes and packets of drawings, thanked him for books lent, asked advice about future reading, anything, so that he might have a sight of his pride, his patron, his paragon. I am afraid Clive Newcomb employed him to smuggle rum-shrub and cigars into the premises, giving him appointments in the school precincts where young Clive would come and stealthily receive the forbidden goods.
The poor lad was known by the boys and called Newcomb's Punch. He was all but hunchbacked, long and lean in the arm, sallow, with a great forehead and waving black hair and large, melancholy eyes. "'What, is it you, J.J.?' cries Clive gaily, when his humble friend appears at the door. "'Father, this is my friend Ridley. This is the fellow what can draw.' "'I know whom I will back against any young man of his size at that,' says the Colonel, looking at Clive fondly. He considered there was not such a genius in the world, and had already thought of having some of Clive's drawings published by MacLean of the Haymarket. "'This is my father, just come from India, and Mr. Pendennis, an old Greyfriars man.
Is my uncle at home?' Both these gentlemen bestow rather patronizing nods of the head on the lad introduced to them as J.J. His exterior is but mean-looking. Colonel Newcomb, one of the humblest-minded men alive, has yet his old-fashioned military notions, and speaks to a butler's son as to a private soldier, kindly but not familiarly.
Mr. Honeyman is at home, gentlemen. The young lad says humbly, shall I show you up to his room? And we walk up the stairs after our guide. We find Mr. Honeyman deep in study on his sofa with Pearson on the creed before him. The novel has been whipped under the pillow. Clive found it there some short time afterwards during his uncle's temporary absence in his dressing room. He has agreed to suspend his theological studies and go out with his brother-in-law to dine. As Clive and his friends were at Honeyman's door, and just as we were entering to see the Divine seated in state before his folio, Clive whispers, J. J., come along, old fellow, and show us some drawings. What are you doing? "'I was doing some Arabian nights,' says J.J.
"'up in my room, and hearing a knock, which I thought was yours, I came down.' "'Show us the pictures. Let's go up into your room,' cries Clive. "'What, will you?' says the other. "'It is but a very small place.'" Never mind, come along, says Clive, and the two lads disappear together, leaving the three grown gentlemen to discourse together, or rather two of us to listen to Honeyman, who expatiates upon the beauty of the weather, the difficulties of the clerical calling, the honor Colonel Newcomb does him by a visit, etc., with his usual eloquence. After a while, Clive comes down without Jay Jay from the upper regions. He is greatly excited. "'Oh, sir,' he says to his father, "'you talk about my drawings.
You should see Jay Jay's. By Jove, that fellow is a genius. They are beautiful, sir.' You seem actually to read the Arabian Nights, you know, only in pictures. There is Scheherazade telling the stories, and what do you call her, Dinarzade, and the sultan sitting in bed and listening. Such a grim old cove. You see, he has cut off ever so many of his wives' heads. I can't think where that chap gets his ideas from. I can beat him in drawing horses, I know, and dogs, but I can only draw what I see. Somehow he seems to see things we don't, don't you know? Oh, Father, I'm determined I'd rather be a painter than anything. And he falls to drawing horses and dogs at his uncle's table, round which the elders are seated.
"'I've settled it upstairs with Jay Jay,' says Clive, working away with his pen. "'We shall take a studio together. Perhaps we will go abroad together. Won't that be fun, father?' "'My dear Clive,' remarks Mr. Honeyman, with bland dignity, "'there are degrees in society which we must respect. You surely cannot think of being a professional artist. Such a profession is very well for your young protégé, but for you—' What for me, cries Clive, we are no such great folks that I know of, and if we were, I'd say a painter is as good as a lawyer, or a doctor, or even a soldier. In Dr. Johnson's life, which my father is always reading, I like to read about Sir Joshua Reynolds best. I think he is the best gentleman of all in the book.
My, wouldn't I like to paint a picture like Lord Heathfield in the National Gallery? Wouldn't I just? I think I would sooner have done that than have fought at Gibraltar. And those Three Graces, oh, aren't they graceful? And that Cardinal Beaufort at Dulwich? It frightens me so I daren't look at it. Wasn't Reynolds a clipper, that's all, and wasn't Rubens a brick? He was an ambassador and knight of the bath. So was Van Dyke and Titian and Raphael and Velazquez. I'll just trouble you to show me better gentlemen than them, Uncle Charles. "'Far be it from me to say that the pictorial calling is not honourable,' says Uncle Charles. "'But as the world goes, there are other professions in greater repute, and I should have thought Colonel Newcomb's son.' "'He shall follow his own bent,' said the Colonel.
"'As long as his calling is honest, it becomes a gentleman, and if he were to take a fancy to play on the fiddle, actually on the fiddle, I shouldn't object.'" Such a rum chapter was upstairs, Clive resumes, looking up from his scribbling. He was walking up and down on the landing in a dressing gown with scarcely any other clothes on, holding a plate in one hand and a pork chop he was munching with the other, like this. And Clive draws a figure. What do you think, sir? He was in the Cave of Harmony, he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan. He knew me at once, and he says, Sir, your father acted like a gentleman, a Christian, and a man of honor, Maxima de Betur Puerro Reverentia.
Give him my compliments. I don't know his highly respectable name." His highly respectable name, says Clive, cracking with laughter. Those were his very words. And inform him that I am an orphan myself in needy circumstances. He said he was in needy circumstances, and I heartily wish he'd adopt me. The lad puffed out his face, made his voice as loud and as deep as he could, and from his imitation and the picture he had drawn, I knew at once that Fred Baham was the man he mimicked. And does the Red Rover live here? cried Mr. Penn Dennis, and have we earthed him at last? "'He sometimes comes here,' Mr. Honeyman said, with a careless manner. "'My landlord and landlady were butler and housekeeper to his father, Bayham of Bayham, one of the oldest families in Europe, and Mr.
Frederick Bayham, the exceedingly eccentric person of whom you speak, was a private pupil of my own dear father in our happy days at Borrembury.' He had scarcely spoken when a knock was heard at the door, and before the occupant of the lodgings could say, "'Come in,' Mr. Frederick Bam made his appearance, arrayed in that peculiar costume which he affected. In those days we wore very tall stocks, only a very few poetic and eccentric persons venturing on the Byron collar. But Fred Bayham confined his neck by a simple ribbon, which allowed his great red whiskers to curl freely round his capacious jowl. He wore a black frock and a large, broad-brimmed hat and looked somewhat like a dissenting preacher.
At other periods, you would see him in a green coat and a blue neckcloth, as if the turf or the driving of coaches was his occupation. I have heard from the young man of the house who you were, Colonel Newcomb. He said with the greatest gravity, and happened to be present, sir, the other night, for I was a weary, having been toiling all the day in literary labor, and needed some refreshment. I happened to be present, sir, at a scene which did you the greatest honor, and of which I spoke, not knowing you, with something like levity to your son. He is an ingenui voltus puer ingenui cae pudoris. Pendennis, how are you? And I thought, sir, I would come down and tender an apology, if I had said any words that might savor of offence to a gentleman who was in the right, as I told the room when you quitted it, as Mr.
Pendennis, I am sure, will remember. Mr. Pendennis looked surprised, and perhaps negation. You forget, Pendennis. Those who quit that room, sir, often forget on the morrow what occurred during the revelry of the night. You did right in refusing to return to that scene. We public men are obliged often to seek our refreshment at hours when luckier individuals are lapped in slumber. And what may be your occupation, Mr. Mayhem? asked the colonel rather gloomily, for he had an idea that Bayham was adopting a strain of persiflage which the Indian gentleman by no means relished. Never saying aught but a kind word to any one, he was on fire at the notion that any should take a liberty with him. A barrister, sir, but without business.
A literary man who can but seldom find an opportunity to sell the works of his brains. A gentleman, sir, who has met with neglect, perhaps merited, perhaps undeserved, from his family. I get my bread as best I may. On that evening I had been lecturing on the genius of some of our comic writers at the Parthenapion, Hackney. My audience was scanty, perhaps equal to my desserts. I came home on foot to an egg and a glass of beer after midnight, and witnessed the scene which did you so much honor. What is this? I fancy a ludicrous picture of myself. He had taken up the sketch which Clive had been drawing. I like fun, even at my own expense, and can afford to laugh at a joke which is meant in good humor.
This speech quite reconciled the honest colonel. I am sure the author of that, Mr. Baham, means you or any man no harm. Why, the rascal, sir, has drawn me his own father, and I have sent the drawing to Major Hobbes, who is in command of my regiment. Chinnery himself, sir, couldn't hit off a likeness better. He has drawn me on horseback, and he has drawn me on foot, and he has drawn my friend, Mr. Binney, who lives with me. We have scores of his drawings at my lodgings, and if he will favor us by dining with us today, and these gentlemen, you shall see that you are not the only person caricatured by Clive here. "'I just took some little dinner upstairs, sir. I am a moderate man, and can live, if need be, like a Spartan.
But to join such good company I will gladly use the knife and fork again. You will excuse the traveller's dress. I keep a room here, which I use only occasionally, and am at present lodging in the country.'" When Honeyman was ready, the colonel, who had the greatest respect for the church, would not hear of going out of the room before the clergyman, and took his arm to walk. Bayham then fell to Mr. Pendennis's lot, and they went together. Through Hill Street and Barclay Square, their course was straight enough, But at Hay Hill, Mr. Bayham made an abrupt tack larboard, engaging in a labyrinth of stables and walking a long way round from Clifford Street, whither we were bound. He hinted at a cab, but Pendennis refused to ride, being, in truth, anxious to see which way his eccentric companion would steer.
There are reasons. growled Bayham, which need not be explained to one of your experience why Bond Street must be avoided by some men peculiarly situated. The smell of Truffaut's Pomatum makes me ill. Tell me, Pandenas, is this Indian warrior a rajah of large wealth? Could he, do you think, recommend me to a situation in the East India Company? I would gladly take any honest post in which fidelity might be useful, genius might be appreciated, and courage rewarded. Here we are. The hotel seems comfortable. I never was in it before. When we entered the Colonel's sitting room at Neretz, we found the waiter engaged in extending the table. We are a larger party than I expected, our host said. I met my brother Brian on horseback, leaving cards at that great house in Mm-mm Street.
The Russian Embassy, says Mr. Honeyman, who knew the town quite well. And he said he was disengaged and would dine with us, continues the Colonel. "'Am I to understand, Colonel Newcomb,' says Mr. Frederick Bayham, "'that you are related to the eminent banker Sir Brian Newcomb, "'who gives such uncommonly swell parties in Park Lane?' "'What is a swell party?' asked the Colonel, laughing. "'I dined with my brother last Wednesday, "'and it was a very grand dinner, certainly. "'The Governor-General himself could not give a more splendid entertainment.' But do you know I scarcely had enough to eat? I don't eat side dishes, and as for the roast beef of old England, the meat was put on the table and whisked away like Sancho's inauguration feast at Barataria.
We did not dine till nine o'clock. I, like a few glasses of claret and a cozy talk after dinner, but, uh, well, well... No doubt the worthy gentleman was accusing himself of telling tales out of school, and had come to a timely repentance. Our dinner, I hope, will be different. Jack Binney will take care of that. That fellow is full of anecdote and fun. You will meet one or two more of our service. Mr. Thomas de Boots, who is not a bad chap over a glass of wine. Mr. Pendennis's chum, Mr. Warrington. And my nephew, Barnes Newcomb, a dry fellow at first, but I dare say he has good about him when you know him. Almost every man has, said the good-natured philosopher. Clive, you rogue, mind, and be moderate with the champagne, sir."
Champagne's for women," said Clive. I stick to Claret. I say, Pendennis, here may I remark, it is my deliberate opinion that F.B. has got into a good thing. Mr. Pendennis, seeing there was a great party, was for going home to his chambers to dress. "'M-m,' says Mr. Bayham, "'don't see the necessity what right-minded man looks at the exterior of his neighbor. He looks here, sir, and examines there.' And Bayham tapped his forehead, which was expansive, and then his heart, which he considered to be in the right place. "'What is this I hear about dressing?' asks our host. "'Dine in your frock, my good friend, and welcome, if your dress code is in the country.' "'It is at present at an uncle's,' Mr.
Bayham said with great gravity, "'and I take your hospitality as you offer it, Colonel Newcomb, cordially and frankly.'" Honest Mr. Binney made his appearance a short time before the appointed hour for receiving the guests, arrayed in a tight little pair of trousers and white silk stockings and pumps, his bald head shining like a billiard ball, his jolly gills rosy with good humor. He was bent on pleasure. "'Hey, lads,' says he, "'but we'll make a night of it. We haven't had a night since the farewell dinner off Plymouth.'" "'And a jolly night it was, James,' ejaculates the Colonel. "'Egad, what a song that Tom Norris sings! "'And your Jocko Hazeldean is as good as a play, Jack.' "'And I think you beat any one I ever hard in Tom Bowling yourself, Tom,' cries the Colonel's delighted chum.
Mr. Pendennis opened the eyes of astonishment at the idea of the possibility of renewing these festivities, but he kept the lips of prudence closed, and now the carriages began to drive up, and the guests of Colonel Newcomb to arrive.
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13 13 - Chapter 13: In which Thomas Newcome sings his Last Song 21:05
The Newcombs by William Make Peace Thackeray. Chapter 13, in which Thomas Newcomb sings his last song. The earliest comers were the first mate and the medical officer of the ship in which the two gentlemen had come to England. The mate was a Scotchman. The doctor was a Scotchman. Of the gentlemen from the Oriental Club, three were Scotchmen. The Southrons, with one exception, were the last to arrive, and for a while we stood looking out of the windows, awaiting their coming. The first mate pulled out a penknife and arranged his nails. The doctor and Mr. Binney talked of the progress of medicine. Binnie had walked the hospitals of Edinburgh before getting his civil appointment to India. The three gentlemen from Hanover Square, and the Colonel, had plenty to say about Tom Smith of the Cavalry, and Harry Hall of the Engineers, how Topham was going to marry poor little Bob Wallace's widow, how many lax barber had brought home, and the like.
The tall, grey-headed Englishman, who had been in the East, too, in the King's service, Joined for a while in this conversation, but presently left it, and came and talked with Clive. "'I knew your father in India,' said the gentleman to the lad. "'There is not a more gallant or respected officer in that service. I have a boy, too, a stepson, who has just gone into the army. He is older than you. He was born at the end of the Waterloo year, and so was a great friend of his and mine, who was at your school.' Sir Rodden Crawley. He was in Gown Boys, I know, says the boy, succeeded his uncle Pitt, fourth baronet. I don't know how his mother, her who wrote the hymns, you know, and goes to Mr. Honeyman's Chapel, comes to be Rebecca Lady Crawley.
His father, Colonel Rodden Crawley, died at Coventry Island in August, 1820-something, and his uncle, Sir Pitt, Not till September here. I remember we used to talk about it at Greyfriars when I was quite a little chap, and there were bets whether Crawley, I mean the young one, was a baronet or not. When I sailed to Regi, Colonel, the first mate was speaking. Nor can any spelling nor combination of letters of which I am master reproduce this gentleman's accent when he was talking his best. I reclact they used always to serve us a dram before dinner, and as your friends are keeping the dinner, and as I've no watch to-night, I'll just do as we used to at Reggie. James, me fine fellow, just look alive and bring me a small glass of brandy, will you?
Did you ever try a brandy cocktail, Colonel? When I sailed on the New York Lane, we used just to make bits before dinner, and thank you, James! And he tossed off a glass of brandy. Here a waiter announces, in a loud voice, Sir Thomas de Boots, and the general enters, scowling round the room according to his fashion, very red in the face, very tight in the girth. Splendidly attired with a choking white neckcloth, a voluminous waistcoat, and his orders on. "'Stars and garters by Jingo,' cries Mr. Frederick Bayham. "'I say, Pandennis, have you any idea is the Duke coming?' "'I wouldn't have come in these bluchers if I had known it.' "'Confound it, no! Hobie himself, my own bootmaker!' Wouldn't have allowed poor F.
B. to appear in Bluchers if he had known that I was going to meet the Duke. My linen's all right anyhow. F. B. breathed a thankful prayer for that. Indeed, who but the very curious could tell that not F. B.'s, but C. H.'s, Charles Honeyman's, was the mark upon that decorous linen. Colonel Newcomb introduced Sir Thomas to every one in the room, as he had introduced us all to each other previously, And as Sir Thomas looked at one after another, his face was kind enough to assume an expression which seemed to ask, "'And who the devil are you, sir?' as clearly as though the general himself had given utterance to the words. With the gentleman in the window talking to Clive, he seemed to have some acquaintance, and said not unkindly, "'How do you do, Dobbin?' The carriage of Sir Brian Newcomb now drove up, from which the baronet descended in state.
Leaning upon the arm of the Apollo in plush and powder, who closed the shutters of the great coach, and mounted by the side of the coachman, laced and periwigged. The bench of bishops has given up its wigs. Cannot the box, too, be made to resign that insane decoration? Is it necessary for our comfort, that the men who do our work in stable or household should be dressed like Mary Andrews? Enter Sir Brian Newcombe, smiling blandly. He greets his brother affectionately, Sir Thomas Gailey. He nods and smiles to Clive, and graciously permits Mr. Pendennis to take hold of two fingers of his extended right hand. That gentleman is charmed, of course, with the condescension. What man could be otherwise than happy to be allowed a momentary embrace of two such precious fingers?
When a gentleman so favors me, I always ask mentally why he has taken the trouble at all, and regret that I have not had the presence of mind to poke one finger against his too. If I were worth ten thousand a year, I cannot help inwardly reflecting, and kept a large account in Threadneedle Street, I cannot help thinking he would have favored me with the whole palm. The arrival of these two grandees has somehow cast a solemnity over the company. The weather is talked about. Brilliant in itself, it does not occasion very brilliant remarks among Colonel Newcombe's guests. Sir Brian really thinks it must be as hot as it is in India. Sir Thomas de Boots, swelling in his white waistcoat, in the armholes of which his thumbs are engaged, smiles scornfully, and wishes Sir Brian had ever felt a good sweltering day in the hot winds in India.
Sir Brian withdraws the untenable proposition that London is as hot as Calcutta. Mr. Binney looks at his watch and at the Colonel. We have only your nephew, Tom, to wait for, he says. I think we may make so bold as to order the dinner. A proposal heartily seconded by Mr. Frederick Bayham. The dinner appears steaming, borne by steaming waiters. The grandees take their places, one on each side of the colonel. He begs Mr. Honeyman to say grace, and stands reverentially during that brief ceremony, while de Boots looks queerly at him from over his napkin. All the young men take their places at the farther end of the table, round about Mr. Binney. And at the end of the second course, Mr. Barnes Newcomb makes his appearance.
Mr. Barnes does not show the slightest degree of disturbance, although he disturbs all the company. Soup and fish are brought for him, and meat, which he leisurely eats, while twelve other gentlemen are kept waiting. We mark Mr. Binney's twinkling eyes as they watch the young man.
Eh! he seems to say. But that's... Just about as free and easy a young chap as ever a set eyes on. And so Mr. Barnes was a cool young chap. That dish is so good, he must really have some more. He discusses the second supply leisurely, and turning round, simpering to his neighbor, says, I really hope I'm not keeping everybody waiting. Hmm, grunts the neighbor, Mr. Bayham. It doesn't much matter. For we had all pretty well done dinner. Barnes takes a note of Mr. Bayham's dress, his long frock-coat, the ribbon round his neck, and surveys him with an admirable impudence. "'Who are these people?' thinks he. "'My uncle has got together.' He bows graciously to the honest colonel, who asks him to take wine.
He is so insufferably affable that every man near him would like to give him a beating. All the time of the dinner the host was challenging everybody to drink wine in his honest, old-fashioned way, and Mr. Binney seconding the chief entertainer. Such was the way in England and Scotland when they were young men, and when Binney, asking Sir Brian, receives for reply from the baronet, "'Thank you, no, my dear sir. I have exceeded already, positively exceeded.' The poor, discomfited gentleman hardly knows whither to apply. But luckily, Tom Norris, the first mate, comes to his rescue and cries out, Mr. Binney, I've not had enough, and I'll drink a glass of anything you like with you. The fact is that Mr.
Norris has had enough. He has drunk bumpers to the health of every member of the company. His glass has been filled scores of times by watchful waiters. So has Mr. Bayham absorbed great quantities of drink. But without any visible effect on that veteran toper. So has young Clive taken more than is good for him. His cheeks are flushed and burning. He is chattering and laughing loudly at his end of the table. Mr. Warrington eyes the lad with some curiosity, and then regards Mr. Barnes with a look of scorn, which does not scorch that affable young person.
I am obliged to confess that the mate of the Indian men, at an early period of the dessert, and when nobody had asked him for any such public expression of his opinion, insisted on rising and proposing the health of Colonel Newcombe, whose virtues he lauded outrageously, and whom he pronounced to be one of the best of mortal men. Sir Brian looked very much alarmed at the commencement of this speech, which the mate delivered with immense shrieks and gesticulation. But the baronet recovered during the course of the rambling oration, and at its conclusion gracefully tapped the table with one of those patronising fingers, and lifting up a glass containing at least a thimbleful of claret, said, My dear brother, I drink your health with all my heart, I'm sure.
The youthful Barnes had uttered many, Here, here's, during the discourse, with an irony which, with every fresh glass of wine he drank, he cared less to conceal. And though Barnes had come late, he had drunk largely, making up for lost time. Those ironical cheers, and all his cousin's behaviour during dinner, had struck young Clive, who was growing very angry. He growled out remarks uncomplimentary to Barnes. His eyes, as he looked towards his kinsmen, flashed out challenges, of which we who were watching him could see the warlike purport. Warrington looked at Bayham and Pendennis with glances of apprehension. We saw that danger was brooding, unless the one young man could be restrained from his impertinence, and the other from his wine.
Colonel Newcombe said a very few words in reply to his honest friend, the chief mate, and there the matter might have ended. But I am sorry to say Mr. Binney now thought it necessary to rise and deliver himself of some remarks regarding the king's service, Coupled with the name of Major-General Sir Thomas de Boots, K.C.B., etc., the receipt of which that gallant officer was obliged to acknowledge in a confusion amounting almost to apoplexy. The glasses went whack-whack upon the hospitable board. The evening set in for public speaking. Encouraged by his last effort, Mr. Binney now proposed Sir Brian Newcomb's health. And that baronet rose and uttered an exceedingly lengthy speech, delivered with his wine-glass on his bosom.
Then that sad rogue, Bayam, must get up, and call earnestly and respectfully for silence and the chairman's hearty sympathy for the few observations which he had to propose. Our armies had been drunk with proper enthusiasm. Such men as he beheld around him deserved the applause of all honest hearts. and merited the cheers with which their names had been received. "'Hear, hear!' from Barnes Newcomb sarcastically. "'Hear, hear, hear!' fiercely from Clive. "'But whilst we applauded our army, should we forget a profession still more exalted?' "'Yes, still more exalted, I say, in the face of the gallant general opposite.' And that profession, I need not say, is the Church. Applause. Gentlemen, we have among us one who, while partaking largely of the dainties on this festive board, drinking freely of the sparkling wine-cup which our gallant hospitality administers to us, sanctifies by his presence the feast of which he partakes.
inaugurates with appropriate benedictions, and graces it, I may say, both before and after meat. Gentlemen, Charles Honeyman was the friend of my childhood, his father the instructor of my early days. If Frederick Bayham's latter life has been chequered by misfortune, it may be that I have forgotten the precepts which the venerable parent of Charles Honeyman poured into an inattentive ear. He, too, as a child, was not exempt from faults. As a young man, I am told, not quite free from youthful indiscretions. But in this present anno domini, We hailed Charles Honeyman as a precept and an example, as a Dicus Phidiae and a Lumen Ecclesiae, as I told him in the confidence of the private circle this morning, and ere I ever thought to publish my opinion in this distinguished company.
Colonel Newcome and Mr. Binney, I drink to the health of the Reverend Charles Honeyman A. M., May we listen to many more of his sermons, as well as to that admirable discourse with which I am sure he is about to electrify us now. May we profit by his eloquence, and cherish in our memories the truths which come mended from his tongue. He ceased. Poor Honeyman had to rise on his legs, and gasp out a few incoherent remarks in reply. Without a book before him, the incumbent of Lady Whittlesey's Chapel was no prophet, and the truth is he made poor work of his oration. At the end of it, he, Sir Brian, Colonel Dobbin, and one of the Indian gentlemen quitted the room, in spite of the loud outcries of our generous host, who insisted that the party should not break up.
"'Close up, gentlemen!' called out Honest Newcombe. "'We are not going to part just yet.' "'Let me fill your glass, General. You used to have no objection to a glass of wine.' And he poured out a bumper for his friend, which the old campaigner sucked in with fitting gusto. "'Who will give us a song?' "'Binny, give us the laird of Cockpen.' "'It's capital, my dear General.' "'Capital,' the colonel whispered to his neighbor. Mr. Binney struck up the laird of Cockpen without, I am bound to say, the least reluctance. He bobbed to one man, and he winked to another, and he tossed his glass, and gave all the points of his song in a manner which did credit to his simplicity and his humour. You haughty southerners little know how a jolly Scotch gentleman can de zippery in loco, and how he chirps over his honest cups.
I do not say whether it was with the song or with Mr. Binney that we were most amused. It was a good comedy, as Christopher Sly says. Nor were we sorry when it was done. Him the first mate succeeded, after which came a song from the redoubted F. Bayham, which he sang with a bass voice which Leblache might envy, and of which the chorus was frantically sung by the whole company. The cry was then for the Colonel. On which Barnes Newcomb, who had been drinking much, started up with something like an oath, crying, "'Oh, I can't stand this!' "'Then leave it, confound you,' said young Clive, with fury in his face. "'If our company is not good for you, why do you come into it?' "'What's that?' asked Barnes, who was evidently affected by wine.
Bayham roared, "'Silence!' And Barnes Newcomb, Looking round, with a tipsy toss of the head, finally sat down. The colonel sang, as we have said, with a very high voice, using freely the falsetto after the manner of the tenor singers of his day. He chose one of his maritime songs and got through the first verse very well, Barnes wagging his head at the chorus with a BRAVO, so offensive that Fred Bayham, his neighbor, gripped the young man's arm and told him to hold his confounded tongue. The colonel began his second verse, and here, as will often happen to amateur singers, his falsetto broke down. He was not in the least annoyed, for I saw him smile very good-naturedly, and he was going to try the verse again when that unlucky Barnes first gave a sort of crowing imitation of the song, and then burst into a yell of laughter.
Clive dashed a glass of wine in his face at the next minute, glass and all. And no one who had watched the young man's behavior was sorry for the insult. I never saw a kind face express more terror than Colonel Newcomb's. He started back as if he had himself received the blow from his son. "'Gracious God!' he cried out. "'My boy! Insult a gentleman at my table!' "'I'd like to do it again!' says Clive, whose whole body was trembling with anger. Are you drunk, sir? shouted his father. The boy served the young fellow right, sir, growled Fred Bayham in his deepest voice. Come along, young man. Stand up straight, and keep a civil tongue in your head next time, mind you, when you dine with gentlemen.
It's easy to see, says Fred. Looking round with a knowing air, that this young man hasn't got the usages of society. He's not been accustomed to it, and he led the dandy out. Others had meanwhile explained the state of the case to the colonel, including Sir Thomas de Boots, who was highly energetic and delighted with Clive's spirit, and some were for having the song to continue. But the colonel, puffing his cigar, said, No. My pipe is out. I will never sing again. So this history will record no more of Thomas Newcomb's musical performances.
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14 14 - Chapter 14: Park Lane 32:57
Park Lane. Clive woke up the next morning to be aware of a racking headache, and, by the dim light of his throbbing eyes, to behold his father with solemn face at his bedfoot, a reproving conscience to greet his waking. "'You drank too much wine last night and disgraced yourself, sir,' the old soldier said. "'You must get up and eat humble pie this morning, my boy.' "'Humble what, father?' asked the lad. Hardly aware of his words or the scene before him. Oh, I've got such a headache. Serve your rights, sir. Many a young fellow has had to go on parade in the morning with a headache earned overnight. Drink this water. Now jump up. Now dash the water well over your head. There you come. Make your toilet quickly, and let us be off and find Cousin Barnes before he has left home.
Clive obeyed the paternal orders, dressed himself quickly, and descending, found his father smoking his morning cigar in the apartment where they had dined the night before, and where the tables still were covered with the relics of yesterday's feast. The emptied bottles, the blank lamps, the scattered ashes and fruits, the wretched heel-taps that have been lying exposed all night to the air. Who does not know the aspect of an expired feast? The field of action strewed with the dead, my boy," says Clive's father. See, here's the glass on the floor yet, and a great stain of claret on the carpet. Oh, father, says Clive, hanging his head down, I know I shouldn't have done it, but Barnes Newcomb would provoke the patience of Job, and I couldn't bear to have my father insulted.
"'I am big enough to fight my own battles, my boy,' the Colonel said good-naturedly, putting his hand on the lad's damp head. "'How your head throbs! If Barnes laughed at my singing, depend upon it, sir, there was something ridiculous in it, and he laughed because he could not help it. If he behaved ill, we should not. And to a man who is eating our salt, too, and is of our blood. He is ashamed of our blood, father. cries Clive, still indignant. We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must go and ask his pardon. Once, when I was a young man in India, the father continued very gravely, some hot words passed at mess. Not such an insult as that of last night. I don't think I could have quite borne that.
And people found fault with me for forgiving the youngster who had uttered the offensive expressions over his wine. Some of my acquaintance sneered at my courage, and that is a hard imputation for a young fellow of spirit to bear. But providentially, you see, it was wartime, and very soon after I had the good luck to show that I was not a Paul Mouillet, as the French call it, and the man who insulted me, and whom I forgave, became my fastest friend, and died by my side. It was poor Jack Cutler at Argom. We must go and ask Barnes Newcomb's pardon, sir, and forgive other people's trespasses, my boy, if we hope forgiveness for our own. His voice sank down as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently.
I have heard his son tell the simple story years afterwards with tears in his eyes. Piccadilly was hardly yet awake the next morning, and the sparkling dews and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession of the grass of Hyde Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian Newcomb's house, where the shutters were just opening to let in the day. The housemaid, who was scrubbing the steps of the house, and washing its trim feet in a manner which became such a polite mansion's morning toilet, knew Master Clive, and smiled at him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting the two gentlemen into Sir Brian's dining-room, where they proposed to wait until Mr. Barnes should appear. There they sat for an hour looking at Lawrence's picture of Lady Anne.
Leaning over a harp attired in white muslin. At Harlow's portrait of Mrs. Newcomb were her two sons simpering at her knees, painted at a time when the Newcomb brothers were not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British merchants with whom the reader has made acquaintance, but chubby children with hair flowing down their backs and quaint little swallow-tailed jackets and Nanking trousers. A splendid portrait of the late Earl of Kew, in his peer's robes, hangs opposite his daughter and her harp. We are writing of George IV's reign. I dare say there hung in the room a fine-framed print of that great sovereign. The chandelier is in a canvas bag. The vast sideboard, whereon are erected open frames for the support of Sir Brian Newcomb's grand silver trays, which on dinner days gleam on that festive board, now groans under the weight of Sir Brian's blue books.
An immense receptacle for wine, shaped like a Roman sarcophagus, lurks under the sideboard. Two people sitting at that large dining table must talk very loud so as to make themselves heard across those great slabs of mahogany covered with damask. The butler and servants who attend at the table take a long time walking round it. I picture to myself two persons of ordinary size sitting in that great room at that great table, far apart, in neat evening costume, sipping a little sherry, silent, genteel, and glum, and think the great and wealthy are not always to be envied, and that there may be more comfort and happiness in a snug parlor. Where you are served by a brisk little maid, then in a great dark dreary dining-hall, where a funereal major-domo and a couple of stealthy footmen minister to you your mutton-chops.
They come and lay the cloth presently. Wide is the main-sheet of some tall amaryll. A pile of newspapers and letters for the master of the house. The Newcombe Sentinel, old county paper, Moderate Conservative, in which our worthy townsman and member is praised. His benefactions are recorded and his speeches given at full length. The Newcomb Independent, in which our precious member is weakly described as a ninny, and informed almost every Thursday morning that he is a bloated aristocrat as he munches his dry toast. Heaps of letters, county papers, Times and Morning Herald for Sir Brian Newcomb. Little heaps of letters, dinner and soiree cards most of these, and morning post for Mr. Barnes. Punctually, as eight o'clock strikes, that young gentleman comes to breakfast.
His father will lie yet for another hour, the baronet's prodigious labors and the House of Commons keeping him frequently out of bed till sunrise. As his cousin entered the room, Clive turned very red. And perhaps a faint blush might appear on Barnes's pallid countenance. He came in, a handkerchief in one hand, a pamphlet in the other, and both hands being thus engaged, he could offer neither to his kinsman. "'You are come to breakfast, I hope,' he said, calling it Wekfist, and pronouncing the words with the most languid drawl. "'Or perhaps you want to see my father?' He is never out of his room till half-past nine. Harper, did Sir Brian come in last night before or after me? Harper the butler thinks Sir Brian came in after Mr.
Barnes. When that functionary had quitted the room, Barnes turned round to his uncle in a candid, smiling way and said, The fact is, sir, I don't know when I came home myself very distinctly, and can't, of course, tell about my father. Generally, you know, there are two candles left in the hall, you know. And if there are two, you know, I know, of course, that my father is still at the house. But last night, after that capital song you sang, Hang Me If I Know What Happened to Me. I beg your pardon, sir. I'm shocked at having been so overtaken. Such a confounded thing doesn't happen to me once in ten years. I do trust I didn't do anything rude to anybody, for I thought some of your friends the pleasantest fellows I had ever met in my life.
And as for the claret, gad! If I hadn't had enough after dinner, I brought a quantity of it away with me on my shirt-front and waistcoat." "'I beg your pardon, Barnes,' Clive said, blushing deeply. And I'm very sorry indeed for what passed. I threw it. The Colonel, who had been listening with a queer expression of wonder and doubt on his face, here interrupted Mr. Barnes. It was Clive that spilled the wine over you last night. Thomas Newcomb said, The young rascal had drunk a great deal too much wine, and had neither the use of his head nor his hands. And this morning I have given him a lecture. And he has come to ask your pardon for his clumsiness. And if you have forgotten your share in the night's transaction, I hope you have forgotten his, and will accept his hand and his apology."
Apology? There's no apology, cries Barnes, holding out a couple of fingers of his hand, but looking towards the Colonel. I don't know what happened any more than the dead. Did we have a row? Were there any glasses broken? The best way in such cases is to sweep them up. We can't mend them." The Colonel said gravely, that he is thankful to find that the disturbance of the night before had no worse result. He pulled the tail of Clive's coat, when that unlucky young blunderer was about to trouble his cousin with indiscreet questions or explanations, and checked his talk. The other night you saw an old man in drink, my boy. He said, and to what shame and degradation the old wretch had brought himself.
Wine has given you a warning, too, which I hope you will remember all your life. No one has seen me the worse for drink these forty years, and I hope both you young gentlemen will take counsel by an old soldier, who fully preaches what he practices, and beseeches you to beware of the bottle."
After quitting their kinsmen, the kind Colonel further improved the occasion with his son. And told him, out of his own experience, many stories of quarrels, and duels, and wine. How the wine had occasioned the brawls, and the foolish speech overnight, the bloody meeting at morning. How he had known widows and orphans made by hot words uttered in idle orgies. How the truest honor was the manly confession of wrong, and the best courage the courage to avoid temptation. The humble-minded speaker, whose advice contained the best of all wisdom, that which comes from a gentle and reverent spirit, and a pure and generous heart, never for once thought of the effect which he might be producing, but uttered his simple say according to the truth within him.
Indeed, he spoke out his mind pretty resolutely on all subjects which moved or interested him. And Clive, his son, and his honest chum, Mr. Binney, Who had a great deal more reading and much keener intelligence than the Colonel, were amused often at his naïve opinion about men, or books, or morals. For Mr. Clive had a very fine, natural sense of humour, which played perpetually round his father's simple philosophy with kind and smiling comments. Between this pair of friends the superiority of wit lay, almost from the very first, on the younger man's side. But, on the other hand, Clive felt a tender admiration for his father's goodness, a loving delight in contemplating his elder's character, which he has never lost, and which, in the trials of their future life, inexpressibly cheered and consoled both of them.
Beate Ili. O man of the world, whose wearied eyes may glance over this page, may those who come after you so regard you. O generous boy, who reads in it, may you have such a friend to trust and cherish in youth, and future days fondly and proudly to remember. Some four or five weeks after the quasi-reconciliation between Clive and his kinsmen, The chief part of Sir Brian Newcomb's family were assembled at the breakfast table together, where the meal was taken in common, and at the early hour of eight, unless the senator was kept too late in the House of Commons overnight. And Lady Anne and her nursery were now returned to London again, little Alfred being perfectly set up by a month of brighton air.
It was a Thursday morning. On which day of the week, it has been said, the Newcomb Independent and the Newcomb Sentinel both made their appearance upon the baronet's table. The household from above and from below, the maids and footmen from the basement, the nurses, children, and governesses from the attics, all poured into the room at the sound of a certain bell.
I do not sneer at the purpose for which, at that chiming eight o'clock bell, the household is called together. The urns are hissing. The plate is shining. The father of the house, standing up, reads from a gilt book for three or four minutes in a measured cadence. The members of the family are around the table in an attitude of decent reverence. The younger children whisper responses at their mother's knees. The governess worships a little apart. The maids and the large footmen are in a cluster before the chairs, the upper servants performing their devotion on the other side of the sideboard. The nurse whisks about the unconscious last-born, and tosses it up and down during the ceremony. I do not sneer at that, at the act at which all these people are assembled.
It is at the rest of the day I marvel. At the very instant when the voice has ceased speaking, and the gilded book is shut, the world begins again, and for the next twenty-three hours and fifty-seven minutes all that household is given up to it. The servile squad rises up and marches away to its basement, whence, should it happen to be a gala day, Those tall gentlemen at present attired in Oxford mixture will issue forth with flour plastered on their heads, yellow coats, pink breeches, sky-blue waistcoats, silver lace, buckles in their shoes, black silk bags on their backs, and I don't know what insane emblems of servility and absurd bedizzenments of folly. Their very manner of speaking to what we call their masters and mistresses "'Will be a like monstrous masquerade.
"'You know no more of that race which inhabits the basement floor "'than of the men and brethren of Timbuktu, "'to whom some among us send missionaries. "'If you met some of your servants in the streets—' "'I respectfully suppose for a moment "'that the reader is a person of high fashion and a great establishment. "'You would not know their faces.' You might sleep under the same roof for half a century and know nothing about them. If they were ill, you would not visit them, though you would send them an apothecary, and of course order that they lacked for nothing. You are not unkind. You are not worse than your neighbors. Nay, perhaps if you did go into the kitchen, or take the tea in the servants' hall, you would do little good, and only bore the folks assembled there.
But so it is. With those fellow Christians who have been just saying amen to your prayers, you have scarcely the community of charity. They come, you don't know whence. They think and talk, you don't know what. They die, and you don't care, or vice versa. They answer the bell for prayers as they answer the bell for coals. For exactly three minutes in the day, You all kneel together on one carpet, and the desires and petitions of the servants and masters over, the rite called family worship is ended. Exunt servants, save those two who warm the newspaper, administer the muffins, and serve out the tea. Sir Brian reads his letters and chumps his dry toast. Ethel whispers to her mother, she thinks Eliza is looking very ill.
Lady Anne asks, which is Eliza? Is it the woman that was ill before they left town? If she is ill, Mrs. Trotter had better send her away. Mrs. Trotter is only a great deal too good-natured. She is always keeping people who are ill. Then her ladyship begins to read the morning post. And glances over the names of the persons who were present at Baroness Bosco's Ball and Mrs. Toddle Tompkins' Soiree d'Encente in Belgrave Square.
Everybody was there, says Barnes, looking over from his paper. But who is Mrs. Toddle Tompkins? asks Mama. Whoever heard of a Mrs. Toddle Tompkins? What do people mean by going to such a person? Lady Poppenjoy asked the people. Barnes says gravely. The thing was really deuced well done. The woman looked frightened. But she's pretty, and I am told the daughter will have a great deal of money. Is she pretty, and did you dance with her? Asks Ethel. Me dance, says Mr. Barnes. We are speaking of a time before the casinos were. And when the British youth were by no means so active in dancing practice as at this present period. Barnes resumed the reading of his country paper, but presently laid it down with an execration so brisk and loud that his mother gave a little outcry, and even his father looked up from his letters to ask the meaning of an oath so unexpected and ungenteel.
My uncle, the Colonel of Sepoys, and his amiable son have been paying a visit to Newcomb. "'That's the news which I had the pleasure to announce to you,' says Mr. Barnes. "'You are always sneering about our uncle,' breaks in Ethel, with impetuous voice, and saying unkind things about Clive. "'Our uncle is a dear, good, kind man, and I love him. He came to Brighton to see us, and went out every day for hours and hours with Alfred. And Clive, too, drew pictures for him.' And he is good, and kind, and generous, and honest as his father, and Barnes is always speaking ill of him behind his back.
And his aunt lets very nice lodgings, and is altogether a most desirable acquaintance, says Mr. Barnes. What a shame it is that we have not cultivated that branch of the family. My dear fellow, cries Sir Brian, I have no doubt Miss Honeyman is a most respectable person. Nothing is so ungenerous as to rebuke a gentleman or lady on account of their poverty, and I coincide with Ethel in thinking that you speak of your uncle and his son in terms which, to say the least, are disrespectful. Miss Honeyman is a dear little old woman, breaks in Ethel. Was not she kind to Alfred, mamma? And did not she make him nice, Jellie? And a doctor of divinity? "'You know Clive's grandfather was a doctor of divinity, Mama.
There's a picture of him in a wig. Is just as good as a banker. You know he is.' "'Did you bring some of Miss Honeyman's lodging-house cards with you, Ethel?' says her brother. "'And had we not better hang up one or two in Lombard Street? Hers and our other relations, Mrs. Mason?' "'My darling love, who is Mrs. Mason?' asks Lady Anne." Another member of the family, ma'am. She was cousin—she was no such thing, sir, roars Sir Brian. She was a relative and housemaid of my grandfather during his first marriage. She acted, I believe, as a dry nurse to the distinguished Colonel of Sepoys, my uncle. She is retired into private life in her native town of Newcombe, and occupies her latter days by the management of a mangle.
The Colonel and young pothouse have gone down to spend a few days with their elderly relative. It's all here in the paper, by Jove. Mr. Barnes clenched his fist and stamped upon the newspaper with much energy. And so they should go down and see her, and so the Colonel should love his nurse and not forget his relations if they are old and poor, cries Ethel, with a flush on her face and tears starting into her eyes. "'Hear what the Newcomb papers say about it,' shrieks out Mr. Barnes, his voice quivering, his little eyes flashing out scorn. "'It's in both the papers, I dare say. It will be in the Times tomorrow. By—' "'It's delightful. Our paper only mentions the gratifying circumstance. Here is the paragraph.
And younger brother of our respected townsman and representative, Sir Brian Newcombe, Bart, has been staying for the last week at the King's Arms in our city. He has been visited by the principal inhabitants and leading gentlemen of Newcombe, and has come among us, as we understand, in order to pass a few days with an elderly relative, who has been living for many years past in great retirement in this place. "'Well, I see no great harm in that paragraph,' says Sir Brian. "'I wish my brother had gone to the Roebuck and not the King's Arms, as the Roebuck is our house. But he could not be expected to know much about the Newcombe Inns, as he is a newcomer himself. And I think it was very right of the people to call on him.' "'Now hear what the Independent says, and see if you like that, sir,' cries Barnes, grinning fiercely."
And he began to read as follows. Mr. Independence, I was born and bred a Scroochemite, and I am naturally proud of everybody and everything which bears the revered name of Scroochem. I am a Briton and a man, though I have not the honor of a vote for my native borough. If I had, you may be sure I would give it to our admired and talented representative, Don Pomposo Lixbittle Grindpopper, Poor House Agincourt Scroocum, whose ancestors fought with Julius Caesar against William the Conqueror, and whose father certainly wielded a cloth yard shaft in London not fifty years ago. Don Pomposo, as you know, seldom favors the town of Scrooombe with a visit. Our gentry are not of the ancient birth enough to be welcome to a Lady Scrooombe.
Our manufacturers make their money by trade. Oh, fie! I, how can it be supposed that such Vulgarians should be received among the aristocratic society of Scrooombe House? Two balls in the season, and ten dozen of gooseberry are enough for them. "'It's that scoundrel Parrot,' burst out Sir Brian, "'because I wouldn't have any more wine of him. No, it's Vidler the apothecary. By heavens! Lady Anne, I told you it would be so. Why didn't you ask the Miss Vidlers to your ball?' "'They were on the list,' cries Lady Anne. "'Three of them. I did everything I could. I consulted Mr. Vidler for poor Alfred, and he actually stopped and saw the dear child take the physic.' "'Why were they not asked to the ball?' cries her ladyship bewildered.
"'I declare to gracious goodness I don't know.' "'Barnes scratched their names,' cries Ethel. "'Out of the list, Mama.' "'You know you did, Barnes. You said you had gallipots enough.' "'I don't think it is like Vidler's writing,' said Mr. Barnes, perhaps willing to turn the conversation." I think it must be that villain Duff the baker, who made the song about us at the last elections. But hear the rest of the paragraph, and he continued to read. The Scroochemites are at this very moment favored with a visit from a gentleman of the Scroochem family, who, having passed all his life abroad, is somewhat different from his relatives, whom we all so love and honor. This distinguished gentleman, this gallant soldier, has come among us not merely to see our manufacturers, in which Scroochem can vie with any city in the north, but an old servant and relation of his family, whom he is not above recognizing, who nursed him in his early days, who has been living in her native place for many years, supported by a generous bounty of Colonel N.
The callant officer, accompanied by his son, a fine youth, has taken repeated drives round our beautiful environs, in one of friend Taplos, of the King's Arms, open drags, and accompanied by Mrs., now an aged lady, who speaks with tears in her eyes of the goodness and gratitude of her gallant soldier. One day last week they drove to Scrookham House. Will it be believed that, though the house is only four miles distant from our city, though Don Pomposo's family have inhabited it these twelve years for four or five months every year, Mrs. M. saw her cousin's house for the first time, has never set eyes upon these grandees, except in public places, since the day when they honoured the country by purchasing the estate which they own?
I have, as I repeat, no voice for the borough. But if I had, oh, wouldn't I show my respectful gratitude at the next election, and plump for Pomposo? I shall keep my eye upon him, and am, Mr. Independent, your constant reader, Peeping Tom.
The spirit of radicalism abroad in this country, said Sir Brian Newcomb. Crushing his eggshell desperately. Is dreadful, really dreadful. We are on the edge of a positive volcano. Down went the eggspoon into its crater. The worst sentiments are everywhere publicly advocated. The licentiousness of the press has reached a pinnacle which menaces us with ruin. There is no law which these shameless newspapers respect, no rank which is safe from their attacks, no ancient landmark which the lava flood of democracy does not threaten to overwhelm and destroy. When I was at Spielberg, Barnes-Newcomb remarked kindly, I saw three long-bearded, putty-faced blaggards pacing up and down a little courtyard. And Count Kepenheimer told me they were three damned editors of Milanese newspapers, who had had seven years of imprisonment already.
And last year, when Kepenheimer came to shoot at Newcomb, I showed him that old thief, old batters, the proprietor of the Independent, and Potts, his infernal ally, driving in a dog cart. And I said to him, Kepenheimer, I wish we had a place where we could lock up some of our infernal radicals of the press, or that you could take off those two villains to Spielberg. And as we were passing, that infernal pot burst out laughing in my face, and cut one of my pointers over the head with his whip. We must do something with that independent sir. We must, says the father solemnly. We must put it down, Barnes. We must put it down. "'I think,' says Barnes, "'we had best give the railway advertisements to batters.' "'But that makes the man of the sentinel so angry,' says the elder persecutor of the press.
"'Then let us give Tom Potts some shootin' at any rate. "'The ruffian is always pochin' about our covers as it is. "'Spears should be written to sir, "'to keep a lookout upon batters, "'and that villain his accomplice, "'and to be civil to them, and that sort of thing.'" And dammit to be down upon them whenever he sees the opportunity.
During the above conspiracy for bribing or crushing the independence of a great organ of British opinion, Miss Ethel Newcomb held her tongue. But when her papa closed the conversation by announcing solemnly that he would communicate with Spears, Ethel, turning to her mother, said, Mama. Is it true that Grandpapa has a relation living at Newcomb, who is old and poor? My darling child, how on earth should I know? says Lady Anne. I dare say Mr. Newcomb had plenty of poor relations.
I am sure some are on your side, Anne, have been good enough to visit me at the bank, said Sir Brian, who thought his wife's ejaculation was a reflection upon his family. Whereas it was the statement of a simple fact in natural history. This person was no relation of my father's at all. She was remotely connected with his first wife, I believe. She acted as servant to him, and has been most handsomely pensioned by the Colonel. "'Who went to her? Like a kind, dear, good, brave uncle as he is,' cried Ethel. "'The very day I go to Newcomb, I'll go to see her.'" She caught a look of negation in her father's eye. I will go. That is, if Papa will give me leave, says Miss Ethel. By gad, sir, says Barnes, I think it is the very best thing she could do, and the best way of doing it.
Ethel can go with one of the boys, and take Mrs. What-do-you-call-em, a gown or a tract or that sort of thing, and stop that infernal independent's mouth. If we had gone sooner, said Miss Ethel simply, there would not have been all this abuse of us in the paper. To which statement her worldly father and brother perforce agreeing, we may congratulate good old Mrs. Mason upon the new and polite acquaintances she is about to make.
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15 15 - Chapter 15: The Old Ladies 29:04
The Old Ladies.
The above letter and conversation will show what our active colonel's movements in history had been since the last chapter in which they were recorded. He and Clive took the Liverpool mail, and travelled from Liverpool to Newcombe with a post-chaise and a pair of horses, which landed them at the King's Arms. The colonel delighted in post-chaising. The rapid transit through the country amused him and cheered his spirits. Besides, had he not Dr. Johnson's word for it, that a swift journey in a post-chaise was one of the greatest enjoyments in life, and a sojourn in a comfortable inn one of its chief pleasures? In traveling, he was as happy and noisy as a boy. He talked to the waiters, and made friends with the landlord.
Got all the information which he could gather regarding the towns into which he came. And drove about from one site or curiosity to another with indefatigable good humor and interest. It was good for Clive to see men and cities, to visit mills, manufactories, country seats, cathedrals. He asked a hundred questions regarding all things round about him. And anyone caring to know who Thomas Newcomb was, and what his rank and business, found no difficulty in having his questions answered by the simple and kindly traveller. Mine host of the King's Arms, Mr. Tableau aforesaid, knew in five minutes who his guest was, and the errand on which he came. Was not Colonel Newcomb's name painted on all his trunks and boxes?
Was not his servant ready to answer all questions regarding the Colonel and his son? Newcomb pretty generally introduced Clive to my landlord, when the latter brought his guest his bottle of wine. With old-fashioned cordiality, the Colonel would bid the landlord drink a glass of his own liquor, and seldom failed to say to him, This is my son, sir. We are travelling together to see the country. Every English gentleman should see his own country first, before he goes abroad, as we intend to do afterwards, to make the grand tour. And I will thank you to tell me what there is remarkable in your town, and what we ought to see. Antiquities, manufactures, and seats in the neighborhood. We wish to see everything, sir, everything.
Elaborate diaries of these home tours are still extant, in Clive's boyish manuscript, and the Colonel's dashing handwriting. Quaint records of places visited, and alarming accounts of inn bills paid. So Mr. Taplow knew in five minutes that his guest was a brother of Sir Brian, their member, and saw the note dispatched by an ostler to Mrs. Sarah Mason Jubilee Rowe, announcing that the Colonel had arrived, and would be with her after his dinner. Mr. Tableau did not think fit to tell his guest that the house Sir Brian used, the Blue House, was the Roebuck, not the King's Arms. Might not the gentlemen be of different politics? Mr. Tableau's wine knew none. Some of the jolliest fellows in all Newcombe used the Boscawen room at the King's Arms as their club, and pass numberless merry evenings and crack countless jokes there.
Duff the baker, old Mr. Vidler when he can get away from his medical labors, and his hand shakes it must be owned very much now, and his nose is very red. Parrot the auctioneer, and that amusing dog Tom Potts, the talented reporter of the Independent, were pretty constant attendants at the King's Arms. And Colonel Newcomb's dinner was not over before some of these gentlemen knew what dishes he had had. How he had called for a bottle of sherry and a bottle of claret, like a gentleman. How he had paid the postboys, and traveled with a servant like a top-sawyer. That he was come to shake hands with an old nurse and relative of his family. Every one of those jolly Britons thought well of the Colonel for his affectionateness and liberality, and contrasted it with the behavior of the Tory Baronet, their representative.
His arrival made a sensation in the place. The blue club of the Roebuck discussed it, as well as the uncompromising liberals at the King's Arms. Mr. Spears, Sir Brian's agent, did not know how to act, and advised Sir Brian by the Knight's Mail. The Reverend Dr. Boulders, the rector, left his card. Meanwhile, it was not gain or business, but only love and gratitude which brought Thomas Newcomb to his father's native town. Their dinner over, away went the colonel and Clive, guided by the Ostler, their previous messenger, to the humble little tenement which Thomas Newcomb's earliest friend inhabited. The good old woman put her spectacles into her Bible, and flung herself into her boy's arms, her boy who was more than fifty years old.
She embraced Clive still more eagerly, and frequently then she kissed his father. She did not know her Colonel Witham whiskers. Clive was the very picture of the dear boy as he had left her almost two score years ago. And as fondly as she hung on the boy, her memory had ever clung round that early time when they were together. The good soul told endless tales of her darling's childhood, his frolics and beauty. Today was uncertain to her. But the past was still bright and clear. As they sat prattling together over the bright tea-table, attended by the trim little maid, whose services the Colonel's bounty secured for his old nurse, the kind old creature insisted on having Clive by her side. Again and again she would think he was actually her own boy, forgetting in that sweet and pious hallucination.
That the bronzed face, and thinned hair, and melancholy eyes of the veteran before her were those of her nursling of old days. So for near half the space of man's allotted life he had been absent from her, and day and night, wherever he was, in sickness or health, in sorrow or danger, her innocent love and prayers had attended the absent darling. Not in vain, not in vain, does he live whose course is so befriended. Let us be thankful for our race, as we think of the love that blesses some of us. Surely it has something of heaven in it. An angel celestial may rejoice in it and admire it. Having nothing whatever to do, our Colonel's movements are, of course, exceedingly rapid, and he has the very shortest time to spend in any single place.
That evening, Saturday, and the next day, Sunday, when he will faithfully accompany his dear old nurse to church. And what a festival is that day for her, when she has her colonel And that beautiful, brilliant boy of his by her side, and Mr. Hicks, the curate, looking at him, and the venerable Dr. Boulders himself eyeing him from the pulpit, and all the neighbors fluttering and whispering, to be sure, who can be that fine military gentleman, and that splendid young man sitting by old Mrs. Mason, and leading her so affectionately out of church? That Saturday and Sunday the Colonel will pass with good old Mason. But on Monday he must be off. On Tuesday he must be in London. He has important business in London.
In fact, Tom Hamilton, of his regiment, comes up for election at the Oriental on that day. And on such an occasion could Thomas Newcomb be absent? He drives away from the King's arms through a row of smirking chambermaids, smiling waiters, and thankful ostlers, accompanied to the post-chaise, of which the obsequious tableau shuts the door. And the Boscawen room pronounces him that night to be a trump. And the whole of the busy town, ere the next day is over, has heard of his coming and departure. He praised his kindliness and generosity, and no doubt contrasted it with the different behavior of the baronet, his brother, who has gone for some time by the ignominious subroquette of Scruesome in the neighborhood of his ancestral hall.
Dear old Nurse Mason will have a score of visits to make and to receive, at all of which you may be sure that triumphal advent of the colonels will be discussed and admired. Mrs. Mason will show her beautiful new India shawl, and her splendid Bible with the large print, and the affectionate inscription, from Thomas Newcomb to his dearest old friend. Her little maid will exhibit her new gown. The curate will see the Bible, and Mrs. Boulders will admire the shawl. And the old friends and humble companions of the good old lady, as they take their Sunday walks by the pompous lodge gates of Newcombe Park, which stand with the baronet's new-fangled arms over them, gilded and filigreed and barred, will tell their stories, too, about the kind colonel and his hard brother.
When did Sir Brian ever visit a poor old woman's cottage, or his bailiff exempt from the rent? What good actions, except a few thin blankets and beggarly coal and soup tickets did Newcomb Park ever do for the poor? And as for the Colonel's wealth, Lord bless you, he's been in India these five and thirty years. The Baronet's money is a drop in the sea to his. The Colonel is the kindest, the best, the richest of men. These facts and opinions, doubtless, inspired the eloquent pen of Peeping Tom, when he indicted the sarcastic epistle to the Newcomb Independent, which we perused over Sir Brian Newcomb's shoulder in the last chapter. And you may be sure, Thomas Newcomb had not been many weeks in England before good little Miss Honeyman at Brighton was favoured with a visit from her dear Colonel.
The envious galler, scowling out of his bow-window, where the fly-blown card still proclaimed that his lodgings were unoccupied, had the mortification to behold a yellow-post-chaise drive up to Miss Honeyman's door, and having discharged two gentlemen from within, trot away with the servant and baggage to some house of entertainment other than the gallers. Whilst this wretch was cursing his own ill fate, and execrating yet more deeply Miss Honeyman's better fortune, the worthy little lady was treating her colonel to a sisterly embrace and a solemn reception. Hannah, the faithful housekeeper, was presented, and had a shake of the hand. The colonel knew all about Hannah. Ere he had been in England a week, a basket containing pots of jam of her confection, and a tongue of Hannah's curing, had arrived for the Colonel.
That very night when his servant had lodged Colonel Newcomb's effects at the neighboring hotel, Hannah was in possession of one of the Colonel's shirts, she and her mistress having previously conspired to make a dozen of those garments for the family benefactor.
All the presents which Newcomb had ever transmitted to his sister-in-law from India had been taken out of the cotton and lavender in which the faithful creature kept them. It was a fine, hot day in June, but I promise you Miss Honeyman wore her blazing scarlet cashmere shawl. Her great brooch, representing the Taj of Agra, was in her collar. And her bracelets, she used to say, I am given to understand, they are called bangles, my dear, by the natives. Decorated the sleeves round her lean old hands, which trembled with pleasure as they received the kind grasp of the Colonel of Colonels. How busy those hands had been that morning! What custards they had whipped! What a triumph of pie-crusts they had achieved!
Before Colonel Newcomb had been ten minutes in the house, the celebrated veal cutlets made their appearance. Was not the whole house adorned in expectation of his coming? Had not Mr. Kuhn, the affable foreign gentleman of the first-floor lodgers, prepared a French dish? Was not Betty on the lookout, and instructed to put the cutlets on the fire at the very moment when the Colonel's carriage drove up to her mistress's door? The good woman's eyes twinkled. The kind old hand and voice shook as, holding up a bright glass of Madeira, Miss Honeyman drank the Colonel's health. Says she, nodding her head adorned with a bristling superstructure of lace and ribbons. I promise you that I can drink your health in good wine.
The wine was one of his own sending, and so were the china fire screens, and the sandalwood workbox, and the ivory card case, and those magnificent pink and white chessmen, carved like little sepoys and mandarins, with the castles on elephants' backs. George, the third, and his queen in pink ivory, against the Emperor of China and Lady in White. The delight of Clive's childhood, the chief ornament of the old spinster's sitting-room.
Miss Honeyman's little feast was pronounced to be the perfection of cookery, and when the meal was over came a noise of little feet at the parlour door, which, being opened, there appeared first a tall nurse with a dancing baby, Second and third, two little girls with little frocks, little trousers, long ringlets, blue eyes, and blue ribbons to match. Fourth, Master Alfred, now quite recovered from his illness, and holding by the hand, fifth, Miss Ethel Newcomb, blushing like a rose. Hannah, grinning, acted as mistress of the ceremonies, calling out the names of Miss Newcombs, Master Newcombs, to see the Colonel, if you please, Mom, bobbing a curtsy, and giving a knowing nod to Master Clive as she smoothed her new silk apron.
Hannah, too, was in new attire, all crisp and rustling, in the Colonel's honor. Miss Ethel did not cease blushing as she advanced towards her uncle. And the honest campaigner started up, blushing, too. Mr. Clive Rose also, as little Alfred, of whom he was a great friend, ran towards him. Clive Rose laughed, nodded at Ethel, and ate gingerbread nuts all at the same time. As for Colonel Thomas Newcomb and his niece, they fell in love with each other instantaneously, like Prince Camaralizamon and the Princess of China.
I have turned away one artist. The poor creature was utterly incompetent to depict the sublime, graceful, and pathetic personages and events with which this history will most assuredly abound. And I doubt whether even the designer engaged in this place can make such a portrait of Miss Ethel Newcomb as shall satisfy her friends and her own sense of justice. That blush which we have indicated he cannot render. How are you to copy it with a steel point and a ball of printer's ink? That kindness which lights up the colonel's eyes gives an expression to the very wrinkles round about them, shines as a halo round his face. What artist can paint it? The painters of old, when they portrayed sainted personages, were fain to have recourse to compasses in gold leaf, as if celestial splendor could be represented by Dutch metal.
As our artist cannot come up to this task, the reader will be pleased to let his fancy paint for itself the look of courtesy for a woman, admiration for a young beauty, protection for an innocent child, all of which are expressed upon the Colonel's kind face as his eyes are set upon Ethel Newcomb.
Mama has sent us to bid you welcome to England, Uncle. Says Miss Ethel, advancing, and never thinking for a moment of laying aside that fine blush which she brought into the room, and which is her pretty symbol of youth, and modesty and beauty.
He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his brown palm, where it looked all the whiter. He cleared the grizzled mustachio from his mouth. And stooping down, he kissed the little white hand with a great deal of grace and dignity. There was no point of resemblance, and yet a something in the girl's look, voice, and movements which caused his heart to thrill, and an image out of the past to rise up and salute him. The eyes which had brightened his youth, and which he saw in his dreams and thoughts for faithful years afterwards, As though they looked at him out of heaven, seemed to shine upon him after five and thirty years. He remembered such a fair, bending neck and clustering hair, such a light foot and airy figure, such a slim hand lying in his own, and now parted from it with a gap of ten thousand long days between.
It is an old saying that we forget nothing. As people in fever begin suddenly to talk the language of their infancy, we are stricken by memory sometimes, and old affections rush back on us as vivid as in the time when they were our daily talk, when their presence gladdened our eyes, when their accents thrilled in our ears, when with passionate tears and grief we flung ourselves upon their hopeless corpses. Parting is death, at least as far as life is concerned. A passion comes to an end, it is carried off in a coffin, or weeping in a post-chaise. It drops out of life one way or another, and the earth-clods close over it, and we see it no more. But it has been part of our souls, and it is eternal.
Does a mother not love her dead infant? A man his lost mistress, with a fond wife nestling at his side. Yes. With twenty children smiling round her knee. No doubt, as the old soldier held the girl's hand in his, the little talisman led him back to Hades, and he saw Leonora. How do you do, uncle? says girls numbers two and three in a pretty little infantile chorus. He drops the talisman. He is back in common life again. The dancing baby in the arms of the bobbing nurse babbles a welcome. Alfred looks up for a while at his uncle in the white trousers, and then instantly proposes that Clive should make him some drawings, and is on his knees at the next moment. He is always climbing on somebody or something, or winding over chairs, curling through banisters, standing on somebody's head or his own head.
As his convalescence advances, his breakages are fearful. Miss Honeymoon and Hannah will talk about his dilapidations for years after the little chap has left them. When he is a jolly young officer in the guards, and comes to see them at Brighton, They will show him the blue dragon chaney-jar on which he would sit, in which he cried so fearfully upon breaking.
When this little party has gone out smiling to take its walk on the seashore, the Colonel sits down and resumes the interrupted dessert. Miss Honeyman talks of the children and their mother, and the merits of Mr. Kuhn, and the beauty of Miss Ethel. Glancing significantly towards Clive, who has had enough of gingerbread nuts and dessert and wine, and whose youthful nose is by this time at the window. What kind-hearted woman, young or old, does not love matchmaking? The Colonel, without lifting his eyes from the table, says, she reminds him of... of somebody he knew once. Indeed, cries Miss Honeyman. And thinks Emma must have altered very much after going to India, for she had fair hair and white eyelashes, and not a pretty foot, certainly.
But, my dear good lady, the Colonel is not thinking of the late Mrs. Casey.
He has taken a fitting quantity of the Madeira. The artless greeting of the people here, young and old, has warmed his heart, and he goes upstairs to pay a visit to his sister-in-law, to whom he makes his most courteous bow as becomes a lady of her rank. Ethel takes her place quite naturally beside him during his visit. Where did he learn those fine manners which all of us who knew him admired in him? He had a natural simplicity. An habitual practice of kind and generous thoughts. A pure mind, and therefore above hypocrisy and affection. Perhaps those French people with whom he had been intimate in early life had imparted to him some of the traditional graces of their vieille tour. Certainly his half-brothers had inherited none such.
"'What is it that Barnes has written about his uncle, that the Colonel is ridiculous?' Lady Anne said to her daughter that night. Your uncle is adorable. I have never seen a more perfect grandseigneur. He puts me in mind of my grandfather, though grandpapa's grand manner was more artificial, and his voice spoiled by snuff. See the colonel. He smokes round the garden, but with what perfect grace? This is the man Uncle Hobson and your poor dear papa have represented to us as a species of bear. Mr. Newcomb, who has himself the ton of a waiter. The Colonel is perfect. What can Barnes mean by ridiculing him? I wish Barnes had such a distinguished air. But he is like his poor dear papa. Que voulez-vous, my love?
The Newcombs are honorable. The Newcombs are wealthy, but distinguished? No. I never deluded myself with that notion when I married your poor dear papa. At once I pronounce Colonel Newcomb a person to be in every way distinguished by us. On our return to London, I shall present him to all our family. Poor good man! Let him see that his family have some presentable relations, besides those whom he will meet and Mrs. Newcomb's in Brionstone Square. You must go to Brionstone Square immediately we return to London. "'You must ask your cousins and their governess, and we will give them a little party.' "'Mrs. Newcomb is insupportable, but we must never forsake our relatives, Ethel. When you come out you will have to dine there, and to go to her ball.
Every young lady in your position in the world has sacrifices to make, and duties to her family to perform. Look at me. Why did I marry your poor dear papa?' "'From duty.' "'Has your Aunt Fanny, who ran away with Captain Cannonbury, been happy? "'They have eleven children and are starving at Bologna. "'Think of three of Fanny's boys in yellow stockings at the Bluecoat School. "'Your papa got them appointed. "'I am sure my papa would have gone mad if he had seen that day. "'She came with one of the poor wretches to Park Lane. "'But I could not see them. "'My feelings would not allow me.'" When my maid—I had a French maid then, Louise, you remember—her conduct was abominable. So was Prévise. When she came and said that my lady Fanny was below with a young gentleman, qui portait des bas jaunes, I could not see the child.
I begged her to come up in my room, and absolutely that I might not offend her, I went to bed. That wretch Louise met her at Bologna and told her afterwards. Good night. We must not stand chattering here any more. Heaven bless you, my darling. Those are the Colonel's windows. Look, he is smoking on his balcony. That must be Clive's room. Clive is a good, kind boy. It was very kind of him to draw so many pictures for Alfred. Put the drawings away, Ethel. Mr. Smee saw some in Park Lane, and said they showed remarkable genius. What a genius your Aunt Emily had for drawing. But it was flowers. I had no genius in particular, so Mama used to say. And Dr. Belper said, My dear Lady Walham, it was before my grandpapa's death, has Miss Anne a genius for sewing buttons and making puddings?
Puddin's, he pronounced it. Good night, my own love. Blessings, blessings on my Ethel.
The Colonel from his balcony saw the slim figure of the retreating girl, and looked fondly after her. And as the smoke of his cigar floated in the air, he formed a fine castle in it, whereof Clive was Lord, and that pretty Ethel Lady. What a frank, generous, bright young creature is yonder, thought he. How cheery and gay she is! How good to Miss Honeyman, to whom she behaved with just the respect that was the old lady's due! How affectionate with her brothers and sisters! What a sweet voice she has! What a pretty little white hand it is. When she gave it me, it looked like a little white bird lying in mine. I must wear gloves by Jove, I must, and my coat is old-fashioned, as Binnie says. What a fine match might be made between that child and Clive.
She reminds me of a pair of eyes I haven't seen these forty years. I would like to have Clive married to her, to see him out of the scrapes and dangers that young fellows encounter, and safe with such a sweet girl as that. If God had so willed it, I might have been happy myself, and could have made a woman happy. But the fates were against me. I should like to see Clive happy, and then say, Nunc dimittis. I don't want anything more tonight, Keen, and you can go to bed. Thank you, Colonel, says Keen, who enters, having prepared his master's bedchamber, and is retiring when the Colonel calls after him. I say, Keen. Is that blue coat of mine very old? Uncommon white about the seams, Colonel, says the man.
Is it older than other people's coats? Keen is obliged gravely to confess that the Colonel's coat is very queer. Get me another coat, then. See that I don't do anything or wear anything unusual. I have been so long out of Europe that I don't know the customs here and am not above learning. Keane retires, vowing that his master is an old trump, which opinion he had already expressed to Mr. Kuhn, Lady Hahn's man, over a long potation which these two gentlemen had taken together. And as all of us, in one way or another, are subject to this domestic criticism, from which not the most exalted can escape, I say, lucky is the man whose servants speak well of him.
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16 16 - Chapter 16: In which Mr. Sherrick lets his House in Fitzroy Square 17:02
XVI. The Newcomes, by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 16. In which Mr. Sherrick lets his house in Fitzroy Square.
In spite of the sneers of the Newcomb Independent, and the Colonel's unlucky visit to his nurse's native place, he remained in high favor in Park Lane, where the worthy gentleman paid almost daily visits, and was received with welcome and almost affection, at least by the ladies and the children of the house. Who was it that took the children to Astley's but Uncle Newcomb? I saw him there in the midst of a cluster of these little people, all children together. He laughed, delighted at Mr. Merriman's jokes in the ring. He beheld the Battle of Waterloo with breathless interest, and was amazed, amazed by Jove, sir, at the prodigious likeness of the principal actor to the Emperor Napoleon, whose tomb he had visited on his return from India, as it pleased him to tell his little audience, who sat clustering round him.
The little girls, Sir Brian's daughters, holding each by a finger of his honest hands. Young masters Alfred and Edward clapping and hurrahing by his side. While Mr. Clive and Miss Ethel sat in the back of the box, enjoying the scene, and with that decorum which belonged to their superior age and gravity. As for Clive, he was in these matters much older than the grizzled old warrior his father. It did one good to hear the Colonel's honest laughs and clown's jokes, and to see the tenderness and simplicity with which he watched over this happy brood of young ones. How lavishly did he supply them with sweetmeats between the acts. There he stood in the midst of them, and ate an orange himself with perfect satisfaction.
I wonder what sum of money Mr. Barnes Newcomb would have taken to sit for five hours with his young brothers and sisters in a public box at the theatre, and eat an orange in the face of the audience. When little Alfred went to Harrow, you may be sure Colonel Newcomb and Clive galloped over to see the little man, and tipped him royally. What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy's tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days. It blesses him that gives and him that takes. Remember how happy such benefactions made you in your own early time, and go off on the very first fine day and tip your nephew at school.
The Colonel's organ of benevolence was so large that he would have liked to administer bounties to the young folks, his nephews and nieces in Brinestone Square. As well as to their cousins in Park Lane. But Mrs. Newcomb was a great deal too virtuous to admit of such spoiling of children. She took the poor gentleman to task for an attempt upon her boys, when those lads came home for their holidays, and caused them ruefully to give back the shining gold sovereign with which their uncle had thought to give them a treat. "'I do not quarrel with other families,' says she. "'I do not—' Allude to other families. Meaning, of course, that she did not allude to Park Lane. There may be children who are allowed to receive money from their father's grown-up friends.
There may be children who hold out their hands for presents, and thus become mercenary in early life. I make no reflections with regard to other households. I only look, and think, and pray for the welfare of my own beloved ones. They want for nothing. Heaven has bounteously furnished us with every comfort, with every elegance, with every luxury. Why need we be bound unto others, who have been ourselves so amply provided? I should consider it ingratitude, Colonel Newcomb, want of proper spirit to allow my boys to accept money. Mind, I make no illusion. When they go to school, they receive a sovereign apiece from their father, and a shilling a week, which is ample pocket money. When they are at home, I desire that they may have rational amusements.
I send them to the Polytechnic with Professor Hickson, who kindly explains to them some of the marvels of science and the wonders of machinery. I send them to the picture galleries and the British Museum. I go with them myself to the delightful lectures at the institution in Albemarle Street. I do not desire that they should attend theatrical exhibitions. I do not quarrel with those who go to plays. Far from it. Who am I that I should venture to judge the conduct of others? When you wrote from India, expressing a wish that your boy should be made acquainted with the works of Shakespeare, I gave up my own opinion at once. Should I interpose between a child and his father? I encouraged the boy to go to the play, and sent him to the pit with one of our footmen.
And you tipped him very handsomely, my dear Maria, too," said the good-natured Colonel, breaking in upon her sermon. But Virtue was not to be put off in that way. And why, Colonel Newcomb, Virtue exclaimed, laying a pudgy little hand on its heart, Why did I treat Clive so? Because I stood towards him in loco parentis, because he was as a child to me, and I to him as a mother. I indulged him more than my own. I loved him with a true maternal tenderness. Then he was happy to come to our house. Then perhaps Park Lane was not so often open to him as Bryan Stone Square. But I make no allusions. Then he did not go six times to another house for once that he came to mine. He was a simple, confiding, generous boy, was not dazzled by worldly rank or titles of splendor.
He could not find these in Brinestone Square. A merchant's wife, a country lawyer's daughter, I could not be expected to have my humble board surrounded by titled aristocracy. I would not if I could. I love my own family too well. I am too honest, too simple. Let me own it at once, Colonel Newcomb, too proud. And now, now his father has come to England, and I have resigned him, and he meets with no titled aristocrats at my house, and he does not come here any more." Tears rolled out of her little eyes as she spoke, and she covered her round face with her pocket-handkerchief. Had Colonel Newcomb read the paper that morning, he might have seen amongst what are called the fashionable announcements, the cause, perhaps, why his sister-in-law had exhibited so much anger and virtue.
The Morning Post stated that yesterday Sir Brian and Lady Newcomb entertained at dinner His Excellency the Parisian Ambassador, and Bakshis Bey, the Right Honourable Canon Rowe, President of the Board of Control. And Lady Louisa Rowe, the Earl of H., the Countess of Q., the Earl of Q., Sir Currie Barton, Major General and Mrs. Hooker, Colonel Newcomb, and Mr. Horace Foggey. Afterwards, her ladyship had an assembly which was attended by etc., etc. The catalogue of illustrious names had been read by Mr. Newcomb to her spouse at breakfast. With such comments as she was in the habit of making. The President of the Board of Control, the Chairman of the Court of Directors, and Ex-Governor General of India, and a whole regiment of Qs.
By Jove, Maria, the Colonel is in good company, cries Mr. Newcomb with a laugh. That's the sort of dinner you should have given him. Some people to talk about India. When he dined with us, he was put between Old Lady Wormley and Professor Roots. I don't wonder at his going to sleep after dinner. I was off myself once or twice during that confounded long argument between Professor Roots and Dr. Windus. That Windus is the deuce to talk. Dr. Windus is a man of science, and his name is of European celebrity," says Maria solemnly. Any intellectual person would prefer such company to the titled nobodies into whose family your brother has married. There you go, Polly. You are always having a shy at Lady Anne and her relations," says Mr.
Newcomb, good-naturedly. A shy? How can you use such vulgar words, Mr. Newcomb? What have I to do with Sir Brian's titled relations? I do not value nobility. I prefer people of science, people of intellect, to all the rank in the world. So you do, says Hobson, her spouse. You have your party. Lady Anne has her party. You take your line. Lady Anne takes her line. You are a superior woman, my dear Polly. Everyone knows that. I am a plain country farmer. I am. As long as you are happy, I am happy too. The people you get to dine here may talk Greek or algebra, for what I care. By Jove, my dear, I think you can hold your own with the best of them. I have endeavoured my assiduity to make up for time lost and an early imperfect education," says Mrs.
Newcomb. You married a poor country lawyer's daughter. You did not seek a partner in the peerage, Mr. Newcomb. "'No, no, not such a confounded flat as that,' cries Mr. Newcomb, surveying his plump partner behind her silver teapot, with eyes of admiration. "'I had an imperfect education, but I knew its blessings, and have, I trust, endeavoured to cultivate the humble talents which heaven has given me, Mr. Newcomb.' "'Humble by Jove!' exclaims the husband. "'No gammon of that sort, Polly. You know well enough that you are a superior woman.' "'I ain't a superior man. I know that. One is enough in a family. I leave the reading to you, my dear. Here comes my horses. I say, I wish you'd call on Lady Anne today.
Do go and see her. Now that's a good girl. I know she is flighty in that. And Brian's back is up a little. But he ain't a bad fellow. And I wish I could see you and his wife better friends.' On his way to the city, Mr. Newcomb rode to look at the new house, No. 120 Fitzroy Square, which his brother, the Colonel, had taken in conjunction with that Indian friend of his, Mr. Binney. Shrewd old cock Mr. Binney. Has brought home a good bit of money from India. Is looking out for safe investments. Has been introduced to Newcomb brothers. Mr. Newcomb thinks very well of the Colonel's friend. The house is vast, but it must be owned, melancholy. Not long since it was a ladies' school, in an unprosperous condition.
The scar left by Madame Latour's brass plate may still be seen on the tall black door, cheerfully ornamented in the style of the end of the last century, with a funereal urn in the center of the entry, and garlands, and the skulls of rams at each corner. Madame Latour, who at one time actually kept a large yellow coach and drove her parlor young ladies in the Regent's Park, was an exile from her native country—Islington was her birthplace, and Griggs in her paternal name—and an outlaw at the suit of Samuel Sherrick—that Mr. Sherrick whose wine vaults undermine Lady Whittlesey's chapel where the eloquent honeymoon preaches. The house is Mr. Sherrick's house. Some say his name is Shadrach, and pretend to have known him as an orange boy, afterwards as a chorus singer in the theatres, afterwards as a secretary to a great tragedian.
I know nothing of these stories. He may or he may not be a partner of Mr. Campion of Shepherd's Inn. He has a handsome villa, Abbey Road, St. John's Wood, entertains good company, Rather loud, of the sporting sort. Rides and drives very showy horses. Has boxes at the opera whenever he likes, and free access behind the scenes. Is handsome, dark, bright-eyed, with a quantity of jewelry and a tuft to his chin. Sings sweetly sentimental songs after dinner. Who cares a fig what was the religion of Mr. Sherrick's ancestry, or what the occupation of his youth? Mr. Honeyman, a most respectable man surely, introduced Sherrick to the Colonel and Binnie. Mr. Sherrick stocked their cellar with some of the wine over which Honeyman preached such lovely sermons.
It was not dear, it was not bad when you dealt with Mr. Sherrick for wine alone. Going into his market with ready money in your hand, as our simple friends did, you were pretty fairly treated by Mr. Sherrick. The house being taken, We may be certain there was fine amusement for Clive, Mr. Binney and the Colonel, in frequenting the sales, in the inspection of upholster shops, and the purchase of furniture for the new mansion. It was like nobody else's house. There were three masters with four or five servants over them. Keen for the Colonel and his son. A smart boy with boots for Mr. Binney. Mrs. Keen to cook and keep house, with a couple of maids under her. The Colonel himself was great at making hash mutton, hot-pot, curry, and pilau.
What cozy pipes did we not smoke in the dining-room, in the drawing-room, or where we would? What pleasant evenings did we not have with Mr. Binney's books and Sheatham? Then there were the solemn state dinners, at most of which the writer of this biography had a corner. Clive had a tutor, Serindy of Corpus, whom we recommended to him, and with whom the young gentleman did not fatigue his brains very much, for his great forte decidedly lay in drawing. He sketched the horses, he sketched the dogs, all the servants from the blear-eyed boot-boy to the rosy-cheeked lass, Mrs. Keene's niece, whom that virtuous housekeeper was always calling to come downstairs. He drew his father in all postures, asleep, on foot, on horseback.
And jolly little Mr. Binney with his plump legs on a chair, or jumping briskly on the back of the cob which he rode. He should have drawn the pictures for this book, but that he no longer condescends to make sketches. Young Ridley was his daily friend now, and Grinley his classics in mathematics over in the morning. And the ride with his father over, This pair of young men would constantly attend Gandish's drawing academy, where, to be sure, Ridley passed many hours at work on his art, before his young friend and patron could be spared from his books to his pencil. "'Oh,' says Clive, "'if you talk to him now about those early days, it was a jolly time. I do not believe there was any young fellow in London so happy.
And there hangs up in his painting-room now—' A head painted at one sitting of a man rather bald, with hair touched with grey, with a large moustache and a sweet mouth half-smiling beneath it, and melancholy eyes. And Clive shows that portrait of their grandfather to his children, and tells them that the whole world never saw a nobler gentleman.
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17 17 - Chapter 17: A School of Art 26:03
The New Comes by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 17. A School of Art.
British art either finds her peculiar nourishment in melancholy and loves to fix her abode in desert places, or it may be her purse is but slenderly furnished and she is forced to put up with accommodations rejected by more prosperous callings. Some of the most dismal quarters of the town are colonised by her disciples and professors. In walking through streets, which may have been gay and polite when ladies'-chairmen jostled each other on the pavement, and linkboys with their torches lighted the bores over the mud, who has not remarked the artist's invasion of those regions once devoted to fashion and gaiety, The center windows of drawing rooms are enlarged, so as to reach up into bedrooms, bedrooms where Lady Betty has had her hair powdered and where the painter's north light now takes possession of the place which her toilet table occupied a hundred years ago.
There are degrees in decadence. After the fashion chooses to immigrate and retreats from Soho or Bloomsbury, let's say, to Cavendish Square, Physicians come and occupy the vacant houses, which still have a respectable look, the windows being cleaned and the knockers and plates kept bright, and the doctor's carriage rolling round the square almost as fine as the countess's, which has whisked away her ladyship to other regions. A boarding house mayhap succeeds the physician, who has followed after his sick folks into the new country. And then Dick Tinto comes, with his dingy brass plate and breaks in his north window and sets up his sitter's throne. I love his honest moustache and jaunty velvet jacket, his queer figure, his queer vanities, and his kind heart.
Why should he not suffer his ruddy ringlets to fall over his shirt collar? Why should he deny himself his velvet? It is but a kind of Fustian. Which costs him eighteen pence a yard. He is naturally what he is, and breaks out into costume as spontaneously as a bird sings, or a bulb bears a tulip. And as Dick, under yonder terrific appearance of waving cloak, bristling beard and shadowy sombrero, is a good, kindly, simple creature, got up at a very cheap rate, his life is so consistent with his dress, He gives his genius a darkling swagger and a romantic envelope, which, being removed, you find not a bravo, but a kind, chirping soul, not a moody poet avoiding mankind for the better company of his own great thoughts, but a jolly little chap, who has an aptitude for painting brocade gones, a bit of armor, with figures inside them, or trees and cattle, or gondolas and buildings or whatnot.
An instinct for the picturesque, which exhibits itself in his works, and outwardly on his person. Beyond this, a gentle creature, loving his friends, his cups, feasts, merry-makings, and all good things. The kindest folks alive I have found among those scowling whiskerados. They open oysters with their jattergans and toast muffins on their rapiers and fill their Venice glasses with half and half. If they have money in their lean purses, be sure they have a friend to share it. What innocent gaiety! What jovial suppers on threadbare cloths and wonderful songs after! What pathos, merriment, humor does not a man enjoy who frequents their company? Mr. Clive Newcomb, who has long since shaved his beard, who has become a family man and has seen the world in a thousand different phases, avers that his life as an art student, at home and abroad, was the pleasantest part of his whole existence.
It may not be more amusing in the telling than the chronicle of the feast, or the accurate report of two lovers' conversation. But the biographer, having brought his hero to the period of his life, is bound to relate it, before passing to other occurrences which are to be narrated in their turn. We may be sure the boy had many conversations with his affectionate guardian as to the profession which he should follow. As regarded mathematical and classical learning, the elder Newcomb was forced to admit that out of every hundred boys, There were fifty as clever as his own, and at least fifty more industrious. The army, in time of peace, Colonel Newcomb thought a bad trade for a young fellow, so fond of ease and pleasure as his son.
His delight in the pencil was manifest to all. Were not his school books full of caricatures of the masters? Whilst his tutor, Grindley, was lecturing him, did he not draw Grindley instinctively under his very nose. A painter, Clive was determined to be, and nothing else, and Clive, being then some sixteen years of age, began to study the art en rangle, under the eminent Mr. Gendish of Soho.
It was that well-known portrait painter, Alfred Smee, Esquire, R.A., Who recommended Gandish to Colonel Newcomb one day, when the two gentlemen met at dinner at Lady Anne Newcomb's table? Mr. Smee happened to examine some of Clive's drawings, which the young fellow had executed for his cousins. Clive found no better amusement than in making pictures for them, and would cheerfully pass evening after evening in that diversion. He had made a thousand sketches of Ethel before a year was over. A year, every day of which seemed to increase the attractions of the fair young creature, develop her nymph-like form, and give her figure fresh graces. He also, of course, drew Alfred, and the nursery in general, Aunt Anne and the Blenheim Spaniels, and Mr.
Kuhn in his earrings, the Majestic John bringing in the coal-scuttle, and all persons or objects in that establishment, With which he was familiar. What a genius the lad has, the complimentary Mr. Smear-bird. What a force and individual there is in all his drawings! Look at his horses! Capital, by Jove, capital! And Alfred on his pony, and Miss Ethel in his Spanish hat, with their hair flowing in the wind. I must take this sketch, I positively must know, and show it to Lenzier. And the curtly artist, daintily enveloped the drawing in a sheet of paper, put it away in his hat, and vowed subsequently that the great painter had been delighted with the young man's performance. Smee was not only charmed with Clive's skill as an artist, but thought his head would be an admirable one to paint.
Such a rich complexion, such fine turns in his hair, such eyes. To see real blue eyes was so rare nowadays. And the colonel, too. If the colonel would but give him a few sittings, the grey uniform of the Bengal cavalry, the silver lace, the little bit of red ribbon, just to warm up the picture. It was seldom, Mr. Smee declared, that an artist could get such an opportunity for colour. With our hideous vermilion uniforms, there was no chance of doing anything. Rubens himself could scarcely manage scarlet. Look at the horseman in Cuibe's famous picture at the Louvre. The red was a positive blot upon the whole picture. There was nothing like French, grey, and silver. All which did not prevent Mr.
Smee from painting Sir Brian in a flaring deputy lieutenant's uniform and entreating all military men whom he met to sit to him in scarlet. Clive Newcombe, the academician, succeeded in painting, of course for mere friendship's sake and because he liked the subject, though he could not refuse the check which Colonel Newcombe sent him for the frame and picture. But no cajoleries could induce the old campaigner to sit to an artist save one. He said he should be ashamed to pay fifty guineas for the likeness of his homely face. He jocally proposed to James Binney to have his head put on the canvas, and Mr. Smee enthusiastically caught at the idea. But honest James winked his straw-eyes, saying his was a beauty that did not want any paint.
And when Mr. Smee took his leave after dinner in Fitzroy Square, where this conversation was held, James Binney hinted, that the academician was no better than an old humbug, in which surmise he was probably not altogether incorrect. Certain young men who frequented the kind colonel's house were also somewhat of this opinion, and made endless jokes at the painter's expense. Smee plastered his sitters with adulation as methodically as he covered his canvas. He waylaid gentlemen at dinner, He unveiled unsuspecting folks into his studio and had their heads off their shoulders before they were aware. One day, on our way from the temple, through Holland Street, to the Colonel's house, we beheld Major General Sir Thomas de Boots, in full uniform, rushing from Smee's door to his brougham.
The coachman was absent, refreshing himself at the neighboring tap. The little street boys cheered and hurrayed, Sir Thomas, as, hurrayed in gold and scarlet, he sat in his chariot. He blushed purple when he beheld us. No artist would have dared to imitate those purple tones. He was one of the numerous victims of Mr. Smee. One day then, day to be noted with a white stone, Colonel Newcomb, with his son and Mr. Smee, R.A., walked from the Colonel's house to Gandish's, which was not far removed thence, and young Clive, who was a perfect mimic, described to his friends and illustrated, as was his wont by diagrams, the interview which he had with that professor. By Jove, you must see Gandish, Pa, cries Clive.
Gandish is worth the whole world. Come and be an art student. You'll find such jolly fellows there. Gandish calls it heart student and says, By Jove, he does. He treated us to a little Latin as he brought out a cake and a bottle of wine, you know. The governor was splendid, sir. He wore gloves. You know, he only puts them on on parade days, and toured out for the occasion's spic and span. He ought to be a general officer. He looks like a field marshal, don't he? You should have seen him bowing to Mrs. Gandish and the Mrs. Gandishes dressed all in their best round the cake tray. He takes his glass of wine and sweeps them all round with a bow. I hope, young ladies, he says, you don't often go to the students' room.
I'm afraid the young gentleman would leave of looking at the statues if you came in. And so they would, for you never saw such guys. But the dear old boy fancies every woman is a beauty. Mr. Smee, you are looking at my picture of Boadishya, says Gandish. Wouldn't he have caught it for his quantities of grey fras, that's all. Yeah, ah, yeah, says Mr. Smee, putting his hand over his eyes and standing before it, looking steady, you know, as if he was going to see whereabouts he should hit Boadishia. It was painted when you were a young man, four years before you were an associate, Smee. Had some success in its time, and there's good pins about that picture, Gendish goes on, but I never could get my prize for it, and here it hangs in my own room.
High art won't do in this country, Colonel. It's a melancholy fact. High art. I should think it is high art, whispers old Smee. Fourteen feet high, at least. And then out loud he says, The picture has very fine points in it, Gandish, as you say. Foreshortening of that arm. Capital. That red drapery carried off into the right of the picture. Very skillfully managed. It's not like portrait paintings, Smee. High art, says Gandish. The models of the Hanschen Britons in that picture alone cost me thirty pounds. When I was a struggling man and had just married me Betsy here, you recognize Boadicea Colonel, with the Roman helmet, cuirass and javelin of the period? All studied from the Hantique, sir, the glorious Hantique.
All but poor de Scheer, says Fata, she remains always young. And he began to speak the lines out of Kauper, he did, waving his stick like an old trump. And famous they are, cries the lad. When the British warrior queen bleeding from the Roman rods. Jolly verses! Haven't I translated them into archaics? says Clive with a merry love, and resumes his history. Oh, I must have those verses in my album, cries one of the young ladies. Did you compose them, Colonel Newcombe? But Gendish, you see, is never thinking about any works but his own, and goes on, Studio of my eldest daughter, exhibited 1816. No, Pa, not 16, cries Miss Gendish. She don't look like a chicken, I can tell you. Admired, Gendish goes on, never heeding her.
I can show you what the paper said of it at the time. Morning Chronicle and Examiner spoke most highly of it. My son has an infant, Hercules, strangling the serpent over the piano. Fust conception of me picture of non-hangly says hangly. For which I can guess who were the angels that sat, says father. Upon my word, that old governor. He is a little too strong. But Mr. Gandish listened no more to him than to Mr. Smee, and went on buttering himself all over, as I have read the Hottentods do. Myself at thirty-three years of age, says he, pointing to a portrait of a gentleman in leather breeches and mahogany boots. I could have been a portrait painter, Mr. Smee. Indeed, it was lucky for some of us you devoted yourself to high art, Gandish, Mr.
Smee says. And sips the wine and puts it down again, making a face. It was not first-rate tipple, you see. Two girls, continues that indomitable Mr. Gandish. Hedia for babes in the world, view of bestum, taken on the spot by myself, when traveling with the late lamented Earl of Q. Beauty, valor, commerce, and liberty, condoling with Britannia on the death of Admiral Viscount Nelson. Allegorical piece drawn at a very early age after Trafalgar. Mr. Fuseli saw the piece, sir, when I was a student of the academy and said to me, Young man, stick to the antique. There's nothing like it. Those were his very words. If you do me the favor to walk into the Hatrium, you'll remark my great pictures also from English Istri.
An English historical painter, sir, should be employed chiefly in English history. That's what I would have done. Why ain't there temples for us, where the people might read their history at a glance and without knowing how to read? Why is my Alfred hanging up in this all? Because there is no patronage for a man who devotes himself to eye art. You know the anecdote, Colonel. King Alfred, flying from the Danes, took refuge in a Neither's Ut. The rustic's wife told him to bake a cake, and the fugitive sovereign sat down to his ignoble task, and forgetting it, in the cares of state, let the cake burn, on which the woman struck him. The moment shews is when she's lifting her hand to deliver the blow.
The king receives it with majesty mingled with meekness. In the background, the door of the hut is opened, letting in the royal officers to announce the Danes are defeated. The daylight breaks in at the aperture, signifying the dawning of hope. That story, sir, which I found in my researches in history, has since become so popular, sir, that hundreds of artists have painted it. Hundreds! I, who discovered the legend, have my picture here. Now, Colano, says the showman, let me lead you through the statue gallery. Apollo. You see, the Venice and Yomini, the glorious Venice of the Louvre, which I saw in 1814, Colonel, in its glory, the Laocon, my friend Gibson's nymph, you see, is the only figure I admit among the antiques.
Now whoop this stair to the student's room, where I trust my young friend, Mr. Newcomb will labor assiduously. As long as Mr. Newcomb, vita... I trembled, Clive said. Lest my father should introduce a certain favorite quotation, beginning, but he refrained, and we went into the room where a score of students were assembled, who all looked away from their drawing boards as we entered. Here will be your place, Mr. Newcomb, says the professor, and hear that of your young friend. What did you say was his name? I told him Rigby, for my dear old governor has promised to pay for JJ too, you know. Mr. Chivas is the senior pupil and custos of the room in the absence of me son. Mr. Chivas, Mr. Newcomb.
Gentlemen, Mr. Newcomb, a new pupil. My son, Charles Gandish, Mr. Newcomb. Assiduity, gentlemen, assiduity. As longa, vita brevis. Et linea recta brevissima est. This way, Colonel, down the steps across the courtyard to me own studio. There, gentlemen. And pulling aside a curtain, Gandish says, there. And what was the masterpiece behind it? We asked of Clive after we have done laughing at his imitation. Hand round the hat, JJ, cries Clive. Now, ladies and gentlemen, pay your money. Now walk in for the performance is just a-going to begin. Nor would the Rouge ever tell us what Gandish's curtain picture was. Not a successful painter, Mr. Gendish was an excellent master, and regarding all artists, save one perhaps a good critic.
Clive and his friend J.J. came soon after and commenced their studies under him. The one took his humble seat at the drawing board, a poor, mean-looking lad with worn clothes, downcast features, and a figure almost deformed. The other, adorned by good health, good looks, And the best of tailors, ushered into the studio with his father and Mr. Smee as his aide-de-camp on his entry, and previously announced there, with all the eloquence of honest Gandish. "'I bet he's at cake and wine,' says one youthful student of an epicurean and satirical turn. "'I bet he might have it every day if he liked.'" In fact, Gendish was always handing him sweetmeats of compliments and cordials of approbation. He had coat sleeves with silk linings.
He had studs in his shirt. How different was the texture and color of that garment to the sleeves Bob Grimes displayed when he took his coat off to put on his working jacket? Horses used actually to come for him to Gendish's door, which was situated in a certain lofty street in Soho. The Miss G's would smile at him from the parlour window as he mounted and rode splendidly off, and those opposition beauties, the Miss Levison's, daughters of the professor of dancing over the way, seldom failed to greet the young gentlemen with an admiring oogle from their great black eyes. Master Clive was pronounced an out-and-outer, a swell and no mistake, and complimented with scarce one dissentient voice by the simple Academy of Ganeshes.
Besides, he drew very well. There could be no doubt about that. Caricatures of the students, of course, were passing constantly among them, and in revenge for one, which a huge, red-haired Scotch student, Mr. Sandy McCollop, had made of John James, Clive perpetrated a picture of Sandy, which set the whole room in a roar. And when the Caledonian giant uttered satirical remarks against the assembled company, averring that there were a parcel of sneaks, a set of licks, spittles, and using epithets still more vulgar, Clive slipped off his fine silk-sleeved coat in an instant, invited Mr. M'Colop into the backyard, instructed him in a signs which the lad himself had acquired at Greyfriars, and administered two black eyes to Sandy.
Which prevented the young artist from seeing for some days after the head of the Laocon, which he was copying. The Scotchman's superior weight and age might have given the combat a different conclusion had it endured long after Clive's brilliant opening attack with his right and left. But Professor Gandish came out of his painting room at the sound of battle and could scarcely credit his own eyes when he saw those of Pum Kolob so darkened. To do the Scotsman justice, he bore Clive, Norran, Kerr. They became friends there, and afterwards at Rome, whither they subsequently went to pursue their studies. The fame of Mr. M'Colop as an artist has long since been established. His pictures of Lord Lovat in prison and Hogarth painting him of the blowing up of the kirk of field, painted for M'Colop of M'Colop, Of the torture of the Covenantists, the murder of the Regent, the murder of Rizzio, and other historical pieces, all, of course, from Scotch history, have established his reputation in South as well as in North Britain.
No one would suppose from the gloomy character of his works that Sandy MacColop is one of the most jovial souls alive. Within six months after the little difference, Clive and he were the greatest of friends, and it was by the former suggestion that Mr. James Binney gave Sandy his first commission, who selected the cheerful subject of the young Duke of Rothsay starving in prison. During this period, Mr. Clive assumed the toga virilis and beheld with inexpressible satisfaction the first growth of those mustachios which have since given him such a marked appearance. Being at Gandish's, and so near the dancing academy, what must he do but take lessons in the Terpsi-Korean art too, making himself as popular with the dancing folks as with the drawing folks and the jolly king of his company everywhere.
He gave entertainments to his fellow-students in the upper chambers in Fitzroy Square, which were devoted to his use, inviting his father and Mr. Binney to those parties now and then. And songs were sung, and pipes were smoked, and many a pleasant supper eaten. There was no stint, but no excess. No young man was ever seen to quit those apartments, the worse as it is called, for liquor. Fred Baham's uncle, the bishop, could not be more decorous than F.B., as he left the colonel's house, for the colonel made that one of the conditions of his son's hospitality, that nothing like intoxication should ensue from it. The good gentleman did not frequent the parties of the juniors. He saw that his presence rather silenced the young man, and left them to themselves, confiding in Clive's parole, and went away to play his honest rubber of whist at the club.
And many a time he heard the young fellow's steps tramping by his bedchamber door, as he lay wakeful within, happy to think his son was happy.
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The new comes by William Makepeace Thecarray. Chapter 18. New Companions.
Clive used to give droll accounts of the young disciples at Gandish's, who were of various ages and conditions, and in whose company the young fellow took his place with that good temper and gaiety which have seldom deserted him in life, and have put him at ease wherever his fate has led him. He is, in truth, As much at home in a fine drawing-room as in a public-house parlour, and can talk as pleasantly to the polite mistress of the mansion as to the jolly landlady dispensing her drinks from her bar. Not one of the Gandishites, but was after a while well inclined to the young fellow. From Mr. Chivas, the junior pupil, down to the little imp Harry Hooker, who knew as much mischief at twelve years old and could draw as cleverly as many students of five and twenty.
And Bob Trotter, the diminutive fag of the studio, who ran on all the young men's errands and fetched them in apples and oranges and walnuts. Clive opened his eyes with wonder when he first beheld these simple feasts, and the pleasure with which some of the young men partook of them. They were addicted to polonies. They did not disguise their love for Banbury cakes. They made bets in ginger beer and took the odds in that frothing liquor. There was a young Hebrew amongst the pupils, upon whom his brother students used playfully to press ham sandwiches, pork sausages, and the like. This young man, who has risen to great wealth subsequently and was bankrupt only three months since, actually bought coconuts and sold them at a profit among the lads.
His pockets were never without pencil cases, French chalk, garnet brooches, for which he was willing to bargain. He behaved very rudely to Gandish, who seemed to be afraid before him. It was whispered that the professor was not altogether easy in his circumstances, and that the elder Moss had some mysterious hold over him. Honeyman and Baham, who once came to see Clive at the studio, seemed each disturbed at beholding young Moss seated there, making a copy of the Marcias. "'Bah, no's, boast, no's, gents,' he informed Clive afterwards, with a wicked twinkle of his oriental eyes. "'Step in, Mr. Newcomb. Any day you're parting down water street, and see if you don't want anything in our way.'" This young gentleman could get tickets for almost all the theatres which he gave or sold, and gave splendid accounts at Cavendish's of the brilliant masquerades.
Clive was greatly diverted at beholding Mr. Moss at one of these entertainments, dressed in a scarlet coat and top boots, and calling out, Yoikes! Hark forward! Fitfully to another Orientalist, his younger brother attired like a midshipman. Once Clive bought a half-dozen of theatre tickets from Mr. Moss, which he distributed to the young fellows of the studio. But when this nice young man tried further to tempt him on the next day, Mr. Moss, Clive said to him with much dignity, I am very much obliged to you for your offer, but when I go to the play, I prefer paying at the doors. Mr. Chivers used to sit in one corner of the room, occupied over a lithographic stone. He was an uncouth and peevish young man, forever finding fault with the younger pupils whose butt he was.
Next in rank and age was M'Colop, before named. And these two were at first more than usually harsh and captious with Clive, whose prosperity offended them, and whose dandified manners, free and easy ways, and evident influence over the young scholars gave umbrage to these elderly apprentices. Clive at first returned Mr. Chivers, war for war, controlment for controlment. But when he found Chivers was the son of a helpless widow, That he maintained her by his lithographic vignettes for the music-sellers, and by the scanty remuneration of some lessons which he gave at school at Highgate. When Clive saw, or fancied he saw, the lonely senior eyeing with hungry eyes the luncheons of cheese and bread and sweet-stuff which the young lads of the studio enjoyed, I promise you Mr.
Clive's wrath against Chivers was speedily turned into compassion and kindness, and he sought And no doubt found means of feeding Chivas without offending his testy independence. Nigh to Gandish's was, and perhaps is, another establishment for teaching the art of design. Barker's, which had the additional dignity of a life academy and costume, frequented by a class of students more advanced than those of Gandish's. Between these and the Barkerites, there was a constant rivalry and emulation, in and out of doors. Gandish sent more pupils to the Royal Academy. Gandish has brought up three medalists, and the RA students sent to Rome was a Gandishite. Barker, on the contrary, scorned and loathed Trafalgar Square and laughed at its art.
Barker exhibited in Pull Mall and Suffolk Street. He laughed at old Gandish in his pictures, made mincemeat of his Angli and Angli, and tore King Alfred and his muffins to pieces. The young men of the respective schools used to meet at Lundy's coffee-house and billiard-room, and smoke there, and do battle. Before Clive and his friend J. J. came to Gandish's, the Barquerites were having the best of that constant match which the two academies were playing. Fred Baham, who knew every coffeehouse in town and whose initials were scored on a thousand tavern doors, was for a while a constant visitor at Lundy's, played pool with the young men, and did not disdain to dip his beard into their port-a-pots when invited to partake of their drink, treated them handsomely when he was in cash himself, and was an honorary member of Barker's Academy.
When the guardsman was not forthcoming, who was standing for one of Barker's heroic pictures, Bayham bared his immense arms and brawny shoulders and stood as Prince Edward, with Philippa sucking the poisoned wound. He would take his friends up to the picture in the exhibition and proudly point to it. Look at that bicep, sir, and now look at this. That's Barker's masterpiece, sir, and that's the muscle of F.B., sir. In no company was F.B. greater than in the society of the artists, in whose smoky horns and airy parlours he might often be found. It was from F.B. that Clive heard of Mr. Chiver's struggles and honest industry. A great deal of shrewd advice could F.B. give on occasion, and many a kind action and gentle office of charity was this jolly outlaw known to do and cause to be done.
His advice to Clive was most edifying at this time of our young gentleman's life, and he owns that he was kept from much mischief by this queer counsellor. A few months after Clive and J.J. had entered at Gandish's, that academy began to hold its own against its rival. The silent young disciple was pronounced to be a genius. His copies were beautiful in delicacy and finish. His designs were for exquisite grace and richness of fancy. Mr. Gandish took to himself the credit for J.J.'s genius. Clive ever and fondly acknowledged the benefit he got from his friend's taste and bright enthusiasm and sure skill. As for Clive, if he was successful in the Academy, he was doubly victorious out of it. His person was handsome, his courage high, his gaiety and frankness delightful and winning.
His money was plenty, and he spent it like a young king. He could speedily beat all the club at Lundy's at Billiards and give points to the redoubted F.B. himself. He sang a famous song at their jolly supper-parties, and J.G. had no greater delight than to listen to his fresh voice and watch the young conqueror at the billiard-table, where the ball seemed to obey him. Clive was not the most docile of Mr. Gendish's pupils. If he had not come to the studio on horseback, several of the young students averred, Gendish would not always have been praising him and quoting him as that professor certainly did. It must be confessed that the young ladies read the history of Clive's uncle in the Book of Baronets, and that Gandish Jr., probably with an eye to business, made a design of a picture in which, according to that voracious volume, one of the Newcombs was represented as going cheerfully to the stake at Smithfield, surrounded by some very ill-favored Dominicans, whose arguments did not appear to make the least impression upon the martyr of the Newcombe family.
Sandy M'Kalab devised the counter-picture, wherein the barber-surgeon of King Edward the Confessor was drawn, operating upon the beard of that monarch, to which piece of satire Clive gallantly replied by a design representing Saulny Bean M'Kalab, chief of the clan of that name, descending from his mountains into Edinburgh, and his astonishment at beholding a pair of breeches for the first time. These playful jokes passed constantly amongst the young men of Gendish's studio. There was no one there who was not caricatured in one way or another. He, whose eyes looked not very straight, was depicted with a most awful squint. The youth, whom nature had endowed with somewhat lengthy nose, was drawn by the caricaturists with a prodigious proboscis.
Little Bobby Moss, the young Hebrew artist from Warder Street, was delineated with three hats and an old clothes back. Nor were poor J.J.'s round shoulders spared, until Clive indignantly remonstrated at the hideous hunchback pictures which the boys made of his friend and vote it was a shame to make jokes at such a deformity. Our friend, if the truth must be told, regarding him, though one of the most frank, generous, and kind-hearted persons, is of a nature somewhat haughty and imperious, and very likely the course of life which he now led, and the society which he was compelled to keep, served to increase some original defects in his character, and to fortify a certain disposition to think well of himself, with which his enemies not unjustly reproach him.
He has been known, very pathetically, to lament that he was withdrawn from school too early, where a couple of years further curls of thrashings from his tyrant old hodge he avers would have done him good. He laments that he was not sent to college, where, if a young man receives no other discipline, at least he acquires that of meeting with his equals in society, and of assuredly finding his betters. Whereas in poor Mr. Ganesh's studio of art, our young gentleman scarcely found a comrade that was not in one way or other his flatterer, his inferior, his honest or dishonest admirer. The influence of his family's rank and wealth acted more or less on all those simple folks who would run on his errands and vied with each other in winning the young Nabob's favour.
His very goodness of heart rendered him a more easy prey to their flattery, and his kind and jovial disposition led him into company from which he had been much better away. I am afraid that artful young Moss, whose parents dealt in pictures, furniture, gimcracks and jewellery, victimized Clive sadly with rings and chains, shirt studs and flaming shirt pins, and such vanities, Which the poor young rogue locked up in his desk generally, only venturing to wear them when he was out of his father's sight, or of Mr. Binney's, whose shrewd eyes watched him very keenly. Mr. Clive used to leave home every day shortly after noon, when he was supposed to take himself to Ganesh's studio. But... Was the young gentleman always at the drawing board copying from the antique when his father supposed him to be so devotely engaged?
I fear his place was sometimes vacant. His friend JJ worked every day and all day. Many a time the steady little student remarked his patron's absence, and no doubt... Gently remonstrated with him, but when Clive did come to his work, he executed it with remarkable skill and rapidity, and Ridley was too fond of him to say a word at home regarding the shortcomings of the youthful scapegrace. Candid readers may sometimes have heard their friend Jones's mother lament that her darling was working too hard at college, or Harry's sisters expressed their anxiety lest his too rigorous attendance in chambers. After which he will persist in sitting up all night reading those dreary law books, which cost such an immense sum of money, should undermine dear Henry's health, and to such acute persons a word is sufficient to indicate young Mr.
Clive Newcomb's proceedings. Meanwhile, his father, who knew no more of the world than Harry's simple sisters or Jones's fond mother, never doubted that all Clive's doings were right, And that his boy was the best of boys.
If that young man goes on as charmingly as he has begun, Clive's cousin Barnes, Newcomb said of his kinsmen, he will be a paragon. I saw him last night at Wauxhall, in company with young Moss, whose father does bills and keeps the bric-a-brac shop in Water Street. Two or three other gentlemen, probably young old clothesmen, who had concluded for the day the labors of the bag, joined Mr. Newcomb and his friend, and they partook of rack-punch in an arbor. He is a delightful youth, Cousin Clive, and I feel sure he is about to be an honor to our family.
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19 19 - Chapter 19: The Colonel at Home 22:18
The Colonial at Home. Our good colonel's house had received a coat of paint which, like Madame Latour's rouge in our latter days, only served to make her careworn face more ghastly. The kitchens were gloomy, the stables were gloomy. Great black passages, cracked conservatory, dilapidated bathroom with melancholy waters moaning and fizzing from the cistern, The great large blank stone staircase were all so many melancholy features in the general countenance of the house, but the colonel thought it perfectly cheerful and pleasant and furnished it in his rough-and-ready way. One day a cartload of chairs, the next a wagon full of fenders, fire-irons and glass and crockery, a quantity of supplies, in a word, he poured into the place.
There were a yellow curtain in the black drawing-room and green curtains in the front. The carpet was an immense bargain, bought dirt cheap, sir, at a sale in Euston Square. He was against the purchase of a carpet for the stairs. What was the good of it? What did men want with stair carpets? His own apartment contained a wonderful assortment of lumber, shelves which he nailed himself, old Indian garments, comfort trunks, What did he want with Gewgaws? Anything was good enough for an old soldier, but the spare bedroom was endowed with all sorts of splendour. A bed as big as a general's tent, a cheval glass, whereas the colonel shaved in a little cracked mirror, which cost him no more than King Stephen's breeches, and a handsome new carpet, while the boards of the colonel's bedchamber were as bare as old Miss Scragge's shoulders, which would be so much more comfortable, were they covered up.
Mr. Binney's bedchamber was neat, snug, and appropriate, and Clive had a study and bedroom at the top of the house, which he was allowed to furnish entirely according to his own taste. How he and Ridley revelled in Water Street! What delightful coloured prints of hunting, racing, and beautiful ladies did they not purchase, mound with their own hands, cut out for screens, frame and glaze, and hang up on the walls! When the rooms were ready, they gave a party, inviting the Colonel and Mr. Binney by note of hand, two gentlemen from Lambcourt, Temple, Mr. Honeyman, and Fred Bayham. We must have Fred Bayham. Fred Bayham, frankly asked. Is Mr. Sherrick, with whom you have become rather intimate lately, and mind you, I say nothing, but I recommend strangers in London to be cautious about their friends, is Mr.
Sherrick coming to you, young un? Because if he is, F. B. must respectfully decline. Mr. Sherrick was not invited, and accordingly F. B. came. But Cherrick was invited on other days, and a very queer society did our honest colonel gather together in that queer house, so dreary, so dingy, so comfortless, so pleasant. He, who was one of the most hospitable men alive, loved to have his friends around him, and it must be confessed that the evening parties now occasionally given in Fitzroy Square were of the oddest assemblage of people. The correct East India gentleman from Hanover Square, the artists, Clive's friends, gentlemen of all ages with all sorts of beards and every variety of costume, now and again a stray schoolfellow from Greyfriars, who stared, as well he might, at the company in which he found himself.
Sometimes a few ladies were brought to these entertainments. The immense politeness of the good host compensated some of them for the strangeness of his company. They had never seen such odd-looking hairy men as those young artists, nor such wonderful women as Colonel Newcombe assembled together. He was good to all old maids and poor widows. Retired captains with large families of daughters found in him their best friend. He sent carriages to fetch them and bring them back from the suburbs where they dwelt. Gandish, Mrs. Gandish, and the four Miss Gandishes in scarlet robes were constant attendants at the Colonel Soirees. "'I delight, sir, in the hospitality of my distinguished military friend,' Mr.
Gandish would say. "'The army has always been me passion. I served in the Soho volunteers three years myself. Till the conclusion of the war, sir, till the conclusion of the war.'" It was a great sight to see Mr. Frederick Baham engaged in the waltz or the quadrille with some of the elderly hurries at the colonel's parties. F.B., like a good-natured F.B. as he was, always choose the plainest women as partners, and entertained them with profound compliments and sumptuous conversation. The colonel likewise danced quadrilles with the utmost gravity. Waltzing had been invented long since his time, but he practiced quadrilles when they first came in, about 1817, in Calcutta. To see him leading up a little old maid, and bowing to her when the dance was ended, and performing Cavalier's Searle with stately simplicity, was a sight indeed to remember.
If Clive Newcombe had not such a fine sense of humour, he would have blushed for his father's simplicity. As it was, the elder's galus, goodness, and childlike trustfulness endeared him immensely to his son. "'Look at the old boy, Pendennis,' he would say. "'Look at him leading up that old Miss Tidwell to the piano. Doesn't he do it like an old duke?' I lay a wages. He thinks she's going to be my mother-in-law. All the women I love with him, young and old. Should he abrade? There she goes. I'll own that he'll prevail and sing as sweetly as a nightingale. Oh, you old warbler. Look at father's old head bobbing up and down. Wouldn't he do for Sir Roger de Covelly? How do you do, Uncle Charles? I say, Im Collab, how gets on the Duke of what you call him starving in the castle?
Gendish says it's very good. The lad retires to a group of artists. Mr. Honeyman comes up with a faint smile playing on his features like moonlight on the façade of Lady Whittlesea's chapel. These parties are the most singular I've ever seen, whispers Honeyman. In entering one of these assemblies, one is struck with the immensity of London, and with a sense of one's own insignificance. Without, I trust, departing from my clerical character, nay, from my very avocation as encumement of a London chapel. I have seen a good deal of the world, and here is an assemblage, no doubt, of most respectable persons, one scarce one of whom I ever set eyes till this evening. Where does my good brother find such characters?
That, says Mr. Honeyman's interlucco, is the celebrated, though neglected artist, Professor Gandish, whom nothing but jealousy has kept out of the Royal Academy. Surely you have heard of the great Gandish? Indeed, I am ashamed to confess my ignorance, but a clergyman, busy with his duties, knows little, perhaps too little, of the fine arts. Gandish, sir, is one of the greatest geniuses on whom our ungrateful country ever trampled. He exhibited his first celebrated picture of Alfred in the Kneeterd's hut—he says he's the first who ever touched that subject—in eighteen hundred and blank. But Lord Nelson's death and victory of Trafalgar occupied the public attention at that time, and Gandish's work went unnoticed.
In the year 1816 he painted his great work of Boadicea. You see her before you. That lady in yellow, with a light front and a turban, Boadicea became Mrs. Gandish in that year. So late as twenty-seven he brought before the world his non-angly said angly. Two of the angels are yonder in sea-green dresses, the Mrs. Gandish. The youth in Berlin gloves was the little main Angelus of that piece. "'How came you to know all this, you strange man?' says Mr. Honeyman. "'Simply because Gandish has told me twenty times. He tells the story to everybody every time he sees them. He told it to-day at dinner, Bordecher and the angels came afterwards.' "'Satter, satter, Mr. Pendennis,' says the Divine, holding up a reproving finger of lavender kind.
"'Beware of a wicked wit. But when a man has that tendency, I know how difficult it is to restrain. My dear Colonel, good evening. You have a great reception to-night. That gentleman's bass voice is very fine. Mr. Pendennis and I were admiring it.' The Wolf is a song admirably adapted to show its capabilities. Mr. Gandish's autobiography had occupied the whole time of the retirement of the ladies from Colonel Newcomb's dinner table. Mr. Hobson Newcomb had been asleep during the performance, Sir Curry Boughton and one or two of the Colonel's professional and military guests silent and puzzled. Honest Mr. Binney, with his shrewd, good-humoured face, sipping his clary as usual, and delivering a sly joke now and again to the gentleman at his end of the table.
Mrs. Newcombe had sat by him in sulky dignity. Was it that Lady Boughton's diamonds offended her? Her ladyship and her daughter's being attired in great splendour for a court ball, which they were to attend that evening. Was she hurt because she was not invited to that royal entertainment? As the festivities were to take place at an early hour, the ladies bidden were obliged to quit the colonel's house before the evening part commenced, from which Lady Anne declared she was quite vexed to be obliged to run away. Lady Anne Newcombe had been as gracious on this occasion as her sister-in-law had been out of humour. Everything pleased her in the house. She had no idea that there were such fine houses in that quarter of the town.
She thought her dinner so very nice. That Mr. Binney, such a good-humoured-looking gentleman. That stout gentleman, with his collars turned down like Lord Byron, so exceedingly clever and full of information. A celebrated artist, was he? Curly, Mr. Smee had his own opinion upon that point, but did not utter it. All those artists are so eccentric and amusing and clever. Before dinner she insisted upon seeing Clive's den with its pictures and casts and pipes. You horrid young wicked creature! Have you begun to smoke already? she asks as she admires his room. She admired everything. Nothing could exceed her satisfaction. The sisters-in-law kissed on meeting, with that cordiality so delightful to witness in sisters who dwell together in unity.
It was... "'My dear Maria, what an age since I have seen you! My dear Anne, our occupations are so engrossing, our circles so different!' in a languid response from the other. "'Sir Brian is not coming, I suppose? No, Colonel!' She turns in a frisky manner towards him and taps her fan. "'Did I not tell you Sir Brian would not come?' He is kept at the House of Commons, my dear, those dreadful committees. He was quite vexed at not being able to come. I know, I know, dear Anne. There are always excuses to gentlemen in Parliament. I have received many such. Mr. Shalhoub and Mr. M. Shenney, the leaders of our party, often and often disappoint me. I knew Brian would not come. My husband came down from Marblehead on purpose this morning.
Nothing would have induced us to give up our brother's party. I believe you. I did come down from Marblehead this morning, and I was four hours in the hayfield before I came away, and in the city till five, and I've been to look at a horse afterwards at Tattersalls, and I'm as hungry as a hunter and as tired as a hoodman," says Mr. Newcomb with his hands in his pockets. How do you do, Mr. Pendennis? Maria, you remember Mr. Pendennis, don't you?" Perfectly, replies the languid Maria. Mrs. Gandish, Colonel Topham, and Major McCracken are announced, and then, in diamonds, feathers, and splendour, Lady Broughton and Miss Broughton, who are going to the Queen's Ball, and Sir Currie Boughton, not quite in his deputy-lieutenant's uniform as yet, looking very shy in a pair of blue trousers with a glittering stripe of silver down the seams.
Clive looks with wonder and delight at these ravishing ladies, rustling in fresh brocades with feathers, diamonds, and every magnificence. Aunt Anne has not her court dress on as yet, and Aunt Maria blushes as she beholds the newcomers, having thought fit to attire herself in a high dress with a Quaker-like simplicity and a pair of gloves more than ordinarily dingy. The pretty little foot she has, it is true, And sticks it out from habit. But what is Mrs. Newcomb's foot compared with that sweet little chasseur which Miss Bolton exhibits and withdraws? The shiny white satin slipper, the pink stocking which ever and anon peeps from the rustling folds of her robe, and timidly retires into its covert.
That foot, light as it is, crushes Mrs. Newcomb. No wonder she winces and is angry. There are some mischievous persons who rather like to witness that discomfiture. All Mr. Smee's flatteries that day failed to soothe her. She was in the state in which his canvasses sometimes are when he cannot paint on them. What happened to her alone in the drawing-room, when the ladies invited to the dinner had departed, and those convoked to the soiree began to arrive? What happened to her, or to them, I do not like to think. The Gandishes arrived first, Bordecher and the angels. We judged from the fact that young Mr. Gandish came blushing into the dessert. Name after name was announced of persons of whom Mrs.
Newcomb knew nothing. The young and the old, the pretty and the homely, they were all in their best dresses and no doubt stared at Mrs. Newcomb so obstinately plain in her attire. When we came upstairs for dinner, we found her seated entirely by herself, tapping her fan at the fireplace. Timid groups of persons were round about, waiting for the interruption of the gentleman until the pleasure should begin. Mr. Newcomb, who came upstairs yawning, was heard to say to his wife, Oh, damn, let's cut! And they went downstairs and waited until their carriage had arrived when they quitted Fitzroy Square. Mr. Barnes' newcombe presently arrived, looking particularly smart and lively, with a large flower in his buttonhole and leaning on the arm of a friend.
"'How do you do, Pendennis?' he says, with a peculiarly dandified air. "'Did you dine here? You look as if you dined here.' And Barnes, certainly, as if he had dined elsewhere. "'I was only asked to the cold, soiree.' Who did you have for dinner? You had my mama and the Bortons and my uncle in awe, I know, for they are down below in the library, waiting for the carriage. He is asleep, and she is as sulky as a bear." Why did Mrs. Newcomb say I should find nobody I knew up here? asks Barnes' companion. On the contrary, there are lots of fellows I know. There's Fred Bayham, dancing like a harlequin. There's old Gandish, who used to be my drawing-master. And my Brighton friends, your uncle and cousin Barnes.
What relations are they to me? Must be some relations. Fine fellow, your cousin. Hmm, growls Barnes. Very fine boy. Not spirited at all. Not fond of flattery. Not surrounded by toadies. Not fond of drink. Delightful boy. "'See yonder. The young fellow is in conversation with his most intimate friend, a little crooked fellow with long hair. Do you know who he is?' "'He is the son of Oldtot Morton's butler. Upon my life it's true.'" "'And suppose it is. What the deuce do I care?' cries Lord Q. "'Who can be more respectable than a butler?' "'A man must be somebody, son. When I am a middle-aged man, I hope humbly I shall look like a butler myself.'" Suppose you were to put ten of Gunter's men into the House of Lords.
Do you mean to say that they would not look as well as any average ten peers in the House? Look at Lord Westcott. He's exactly like a butler. That's why the country has such confidence in him. I never dine with him, but I fancy he ought to be at the sideboard. Here comes that insufferable little old Smee. How do you do, Mr. Smee? Mr. Smee smiles his sweet smile. With his rings, diamond shirt studs, and the red velvet waistcoat, there are few more elaborate middle-aged bucks than Alfred Smee. "'How do you do, my dear lord?' cries the bland one. "'Who would ever have thought of seeing your lordship here?' "'Why the deuce not, Mr. Smee?' asks Lord Q. abruptly. "'Is it wrong to come here?' I have been in the house only five minutes, and three people have said the same thing to me.
Mrs. Newcomb, who is sitting downstairs in a rage waiting for her carriage, the condescending Barnes, and yourself, why do you come here since? How are you, Mr. Gandish? How do the fine arts go? Your lordship's kindness in asking for them will cheer them if anything will, says Mr. Gandish. Your noble family has always patronized them. I'm proud to be recognized by your lordship in this house, where the distinguished father of one of my pupils entertains us this evening. A most promising young man is young Mr. Clive. Talents for a hamateur are really most remarkable. "'Excellent, upon my word, excellent,' cries Mr. Smee. "'I'm not an animal painter myself, and perhaps don't think much of that branch of the profession, but it seems to me the young fellow draws horses with the most wonderful spirit.
I hope Lady Whorlum is very well, and that she was satisfied with her son's portrait. Stockholm, I think, your brother is appointed to? I wish I might be allowed to paint the elder as well as the younger brother, my lord.' I'm an historical painter. But whenever Lord Q is painted, I hope his lordship will think of the old servant of his lordship's family, Charles Gandish, cries the professor. I am like Susanna between the two elders, says Lord Q. Let my innocence allowance me. Mr. Gandish, don't persecute my modesty with your addresses. I won't be painted. I am not a fit subject for a historical painter, Mr. Gandish. "'Halcibiadus' said to Praxitilus, and Pericles to Phrygius,' remarks Gandish.
"'These cases are not quite similar,' says Lord Q languidly. "'You are no doubt fully equal to Praxitilus. But I don't see my resemblance to the other party. I should not look well as a hero, and Smee could not paint me handsome enough.' "'I would try, my dear lord,' cries Mr. Smee. "'I know you would, my dear fellow.'" Lord Q. answered, looking at the painter with a lazy scorn in his eye. "'Where's Colonel Newcombe, Mr. Gandish?' Mr. Gandish replied that our gallant host was dancing a quadrille in the next room, and the young gentleman walked on towards that apartment to pay his respects to the giver of the evening's entertainment. Newcomb's behavior to the young peer was ceremonious, but not in the least servile.
He saluted the other's superior rank, not his person, as he turned the guard out for a general officer. He never could be brought to be otherwise than cold and grave in his behavior to John James. Nor was it without difficulty when young Ridley and his son became pupils at Gandish's. He could be induced to invite the former to his parties. An artist is any man's equal, he said. I have no prejudice of that sort, and think that Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Johnson were fit company for any person of whatever rank. But a young man whose father may have had to wait behind me at dinner should not be brought into my company. Clive comprises the dispute with a laugh. First, Says he. I will wait till I am asked, and then I promise I will not go to dine with Lord Todmorden.
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20 20 - Chapter 20: Contains more Particulars of the Colonel and his Brethren 22:24
Clive's amusements, studies, or occupations, such as they were, filled his day pretty completely. and caused the young gentleman's time to pass rapidly and pleasantly. His father, it must be owned, had no such resources, and the good colonel's idleness hung heavily upon him. He submitted very kindly to this infliction, however, as he would have done to any other for Clive's sake. And though he may have wished himself back with his regiment again, and engaged in the pursuits in which his life had been spent, he chose to consider these desires as very selfish and blameable on his part, and sacrifice them resolutely for his son's welfare. The young fellow, I dare say, gave his parent no more credit for his long self-denial than many other children awarded theirs, who take such life-offerings as are due commonly.
The old French satirist avars that, in a love affair, there is usually one person who loves, and the other, que se les aimers. It is only in later days, perhaps, when the treasures of love are spent, and the kind hand cold which ministered them, that we remember how tender it was, how soft to soothe, how eager to shield. How ready to support and caress. The ears may no longer hear which would have received our words of thanks so delightedly. Let us hope those fruits of love, though tardy, are yet not all too late, and though we bring our tribute of reverence and gratitude, it may be to a gravestone. There is an acceptance even there for the stricken heart's oblation of fond remorse, contrite memories, and pious tears.
I'm thinking of the love of Clive Newcomb's father for him, and perhaps, young reader, that of yours and mine for ourselves. How the old man lay awake and devised kindness, and gave his all for the love of his son, and the young man took and spent and slept and made merry. Do we not say at our tale's commencement that all stories were old? Careless prodigals and anxious elders have been from the beginning, and so may love and repentance and forgiveness endure even till the end. The stifling fogs, the slippery mud, the dun dreary November mornings, when the regents park where the colonel took his early walk. was wrapped in yellow mist. It must have been a melancholy exchange for the splendour of the eastern sunrise and the invigorating gallop at dawn, to which, for so many years of his life, Thomas Newcombe had accustomed himself.
His obstinate habit of early waiting accompanied him to England, and occasioned the despair of his London domestics, who, if Master wasn't so awfully early, would have found no fault with him, for a gentleman as gives less trouble to his servants As scarcely ever rings the bell for himself, as will brush his own clothes, as will even boil his own shaving-water in the little Hetna, which he keeps up in his dressing-room, as pays so regular and never looks twice at the accounts. Such a man deserved to be loved by his household, and I dare say comparisons were made between him and his son, who do ring the bells and scold of his boot St. Nice, and hoarder about it like a young lord. But Clive, though imperious, was very liberal and good-humoured.
And not the worst served, because he insisted upon exerting his youthful authority. As for friend Binney, he had a hundred pursuits of his own, which made his time pass very comfortably. He had all the lectures at the British Institution, he had the Geographical Society, the Asiatic Society, and the Political Economy Club, and though he talked year after year of going to visit his relations in Scotland, the months and seasons passed away, and his feet still beat the London pavement. In spite of the cold reception his brothers gave him. Duty was duty, and Colonel Newcomb still proposed, or hoped to be well with the female members of the Newcomb family, and having, as we said, plenty of time on his hands, and living at no very great distance from either of his brothers' townhouses, when their wives were in London, the elder Newcomb was for paying them pretty constant visits.
After the good gentleman had called twice or thrice upon his sister-in-law in Brinstone Square, bringing, as was his want, a present for this little niece, or a book for that, Mrs. Newcomb, with her usual virtue, gave him to understand that the occupation of an English matron, who, besides her multifarious family duties, had her own intellectual culture to mind, would not allow herself to pass the mornings in idle gossips, and, of course, took great credit to herself for having so rebuked him. "'I am not above instruction of any age,' said she, making Kevin, or complimenting it, rather, having created a being so virtuous and humble-minded. When Professor Scroff comes, I sit with my children and take lessons in German, and I say my verbs with Maria and Tommy in the same class.
Yes, with curtsies and fine speeches, she actually bowed her brother out of the doors. And the honest gentleman meekly left her, though with bewilderment, as he thought of the different hospitality to which he had been customed in the East, where no friend's houses were ever closed to him, where no neighbour was so busy that he had time to make Thomas Newcomb welcome, when Hobbs and Newcomb's boys came for the holidays. Their kind uncle was for treating them to the sights of the town. But here Verktu again interposed, and laid its interdict upon pleasure. Thank you very much, my dear Colonel, says Verktu. There never was surely such a kind, affectionate, and selfish creature as you are, and so indulgent for the children.
But my boys and yours are brought up on a very different plan. Excuse me for saying that I do not think it is advisable that they should even see too much of each other. Clive's company is not good for them. Great heavens, Maria, cried the Colonel, starting up. Do you mean that my boy's society is not good enough for any boy alive? Maria turned very red. She had not said more than she meant, but more than she meant to say. My dear Colonel, how hot we are! How angry you Indian gentlemen become with us poor women! Your boy is much older than mine. He lives with artists, with all sorts of eccentric people. Our children are bred on quite a different plan. Hobson will succeed his father in the bank, and dear Samuel, I trust, will go into the church.
I told you before, the views I had regarding the boys, but it was most kind of you to think of them, most generous and kind. That nabob of ours is a queer fish, Hobson Newcombe remarked to his nephew Barnes. He is as proud as Lucifer. He is always taking huff about one thing or the other. He went off in a fume the other night, because your aunt objected to his taking the boys to a play. She don't like their going to a play. My mother didn't either. Your aunt is a woman who is uncommon wide awake, I can tell you. I always knew, sir, that my aunt was perfectly aware of the time of the day," says Barnes with a bow. And then the colonel flies out about his boy, and says that my wife insulted him.
I used to like that boy. Before his father came, he was a good enough lad, a jolly brave little fellow. I confess I did not know Mr. Clive at that interesting period of his existence, remarks Barnes. But since he has taken this madcap freak of turning painter, The uncle continues. There is no understanding, the chap. Did you ever see such a set of fellows as the colonel had got together at his party the other night? Dirty chaps in velvet coats and beards. They look like a set of Montybanks. And this young Clive is going to turn painter. A very advantageous thing for the family, although our picture's for nothing. I always said he was a darling boy, simpered Barnes. Darling jackass, growled the senior.
Confound it. Why doesn't my brother set him up in some respectable business? I ain't proud. I've not married an earl's daughter. No offence to you, Barnes. Not at all, sir. I can't help it if my grandfather is a gentleman, says Barnes with a fascinating smile. The uncle laughs. I mean, I don't care what a fellow is if he's a good fellow. But a painter? Hang it. A painter's no trade at all. I don't fancy seeing one of our family sticking up pictures for sale. I don't like it, Barnes. Hush. Here comes his distinguished friend, Mr. Pendennis, whispers Barnes, and the uncle growling out. Damn all literary fellows, all artists, the whole lot of them, turns away. Barnes waves three languid fingers of recognition towards Pendennis, and when the uncle and nephew have moved out of the club newspaper room, little Tom Eaves comes up and tells the present reporter every word of their conversation.
Very soon, Mrs. Newcombe announced that the Indian brother found the Society of Brine Stone Square. Very little to his taste. As, indeed, how should he? Being a man of a good, harmless disposition, certainly, but of small intellectual culture, he could not be helped. She had done her utmost to make him welcome, and grieved that their pursuits were not more congenial. She heard that he was much more intimate in Park Lane. Possibly the superior rank of Lady Anne's family might present charms to Colonel Newcomb, who fell asleep at her assemblies. His boy, she was afraid, was leading the most irregular life. He was growing a pair of mustachios, and going about all sorts of wild associates. She found no fault—who was she to find fault with anyone?
But she had been compelled to hint that her children must not be too intimate with him. And so, between one brother who meant no unkindness, and another who was all affection and goodwill, this undoubting woman created difference, distrust, dislike, which might one day possibly lead to open rupture. The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall. And they come by their deserts. But who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do? To her sister-in-law, Lady Anne, the Colonel's society was more welcome. The affectionate gentleman never tired of doing kindnesses to his brother's many children, and as Mr. Clive's pursuits now separated him a good deal from his father, the Colonel, not perhaps without a sigh that fate should so separate him from the society which he loved the best in the world, consoled himself as best he might with his nephews and nieces.
Especially with Ethel, for whom his bell passion conceived at first sight never diminished. If Uncle Newcomb had a hundred children, Ethel said, who was rather jealous of this position, he would spoil them all. He found a fine occupation in breaking a pretty little horse for her, of which he made her a present, and there was no horse in the park that was so handsome, and surely no girl who looked more beautiful than Ethel Newcomb, with her broad hat and red ribbon, with her thick black locks waving around her bright face. Galloping along the ride on Berthorpe. Occasionally Clive was at their riding-parties, when the colonel would fall back and fondly survey the young people cantering side by side over the grass.
But by tacit convention it was arranged that the cousins should be but seldom together. The colonel might be his niece's companion, and no one could receive him with a more joyous welcome. But when Mr. Clive made his appearance with his father at the Park Lane door, a certain gene was visible in Miss Ethel. who would never mount except with Colonel Newcomb's assistance, and who, especially after Mr. Clive's famous mustachios made their appearance, rallied him, and remonstrated with him regarding those ornaments, and treated him with much distance and dignity. She asked him if he was going into the army? She could not understand how any but military men could wear mustachios. Then she looked fondly and archly at her uncle, and said she liked none that were not grey.
Clive set her down as a very haughty, spoiled, aristocratic young creature. If he had been in love with her, no doubt he would have sacrificed even those beloved new-born whiskers for the charmer. Had he not already brought on credit the necessary implements in a fine dressing-case from young Moss? But he was not in love with her. Otherwise he would have found a thousand opportunities of riding with her, walking with her, meeting her, in spite of all prohibitions tacit or expressed. All governesses, guardians, mamma's punctilioes, and kind hints from friends. For a while, Mr. Clive thought himself in love with his cousin, than whom no more beautiful young girl could be seen in any part, ball or drawing-room, and he drew a hundred pictures of her, and discoursed about her beauties to J.J., who fell in love with her on hearsay.
But at this time, Mademoiselle Salterilly was dancing at Drouley Lane Theatre. And it certainly may be said that Clive's first love was bestowed upon that beauty. His picture, of course, he drew in most of her favourite characters, and for whom his passion lasted until the end of the season, when her night was announced, tickets to be had at the theatre, or of Mademoiselle Saltarelli's Buckingham Street Strand. Then it was that, with a throbbing heart and a £5 note, to engage places for the houries' benefit, Clive beheld Madame Rigon, Mademoiselle Saltarelli's mother, who entertained him in the French language. and a dark parlour smelling of onions. And, oh, issuing from the adjoining dining room, where was a dingy vision of a feast in future pots upon a darkling tablecloth?
Could that lean, scraggy, old, beetle-browed yellow face be cried, Où est-tu donc, ma maman? With such a shrill nasal voice, could that elderly vixen be that blooming and divine Saltarelli? Clive drew her picture as she was, and a likeness of Madame Rogorme, her mamma. A mosaic youth, profusely jeweled and centred at once with tobacco and eau de cologne, occupied Clive's stool on Mademoiselle Salcarelli's night. It was young Mr. Moss, of Gandish's, to whom Newcom ceded his place, and who laughed, as he always did at Clive's jokes, when the latter told the story of his interview with the dancer. Paid five pounds to see that woman? I could have took you behind the scenes, or bide the seeds, Mr.
Moss said, and showed her to you for nothing. Did he take Clive behind the scenes? Over this part of the young gentleman's life, without implying the least harm to him, there have not others been behind the scenes, and can there be any more dreary object than those whitened and rattled old women who shudder at the slips? Over this stage of Clive Newcomb's life, we may surely drop the curtain. It is pleasanter to contemplate that kind of old face of Clive's father, that sweet, young, blushing lady by his side, as the two ride homewards at sunset. The grooms behind in quiet conversation about horses, as men never tire of talking about horses. Ethel wants to know about battles, about lovers' lamps, which she has read of in Lallarook.
Have you ever seen them, uncle, floating down the ganges of a night? About Indian widows? Did you actually see one burning, and hear her scream as you rode up? She wonders whether he will tell her anything about Clive's mother, how she must have loved Uncle Newcomb. Ethel can't bear, somehow, to think that her name was Mrs. Casey. Perhaps he was very fond of her, though he scarcely ever mentions her name. She was nothing like that good old funny Miss Honeyman at Brighton. Who could the person be? A person that her uncle knew ever so long ago. A French lady, whom her uncle says Ethel often resembles. That is why he speaks French so well. He can recite whole pages out of Racine. Perhaps it was the French lady who taught him.
And he was not very happy at the hermitage. But Grandpapa was a very good man, and he upset Papa in a little carriage. And was wild, and got into disgrace, and was sent to India. He cannot have been very bad, Ethel thinks, looking at him with her honest eyes. Last week he went to the drawing room, and Papa presented him. His uniform of grey and silver was quite old, yet he looked much grander than Sir Brian in his new deputy lieutenant's dress. Next year, when I'm presented, you must come too, sir, says Ethel. I insist upon it. You must come too. I will order a new uniform, Ethel, says her uncle. The girl laughs. "'When little Egbert took hold of your sword, uncle, and asked you how many people you'd killed, do you know I had the same question in my mind?
And I thought when you went to the drawing-room, perhaps the king will knight him.' And instead he knighted Mama's apothecary, Sir Danby Jilks, that horrid little man. And I won't have you knighted any more. "'I hope Egbert won't ask Sir Danby Jilks how many people he has killed,' says the colonel, laughing, for thinking the joke too severe upon Sir Danby in the profession. He forthwith apologizes for narrating many anecdotes he knows to the credit of surgeons. How, when the fever broke out on board the ship going to India, their surgeon devoted himself to the safety of the crew, and died himself, leaving directions for the treatment of the patients when he was gone. What heroism the doctors showed during the cholera in India, and what courage he had seen some of them exhibit in action, attending the wounded men under the hottest fire, and exposing themselves as readily as the bravest troops.
Ethel declares that her uncle always will talk of other people's courage, and never say a word about his own. And the only reason, she says, which made me like that odious Sir Thomas the Boots, who laughed so, and looked so red, and pays such horrid compliments to all ladies, was that he praised you, uncle, at Newcombe last year, when Barnes and he came to us at Christmas. Why did you not come? Mamma and I went to see your old nurse, and we found her such a nice old lady. So the pair talked kindly on. riding homewards through the pleasant summer twilight. Mamma had gone out to dinner, and there were cards for three parties afterwards. "'Oh, how I wish it was next year,' says Miss Ethel. "'Many a splendid assembly, and many a brilliant next year, while the ardent and hopeful young creature enjoy.
But in the midst of her splendour and triumphs, buzzing flatterers and conquered rivals, her straight admirers, no doubt she will think sometimes of that quiet season before the world began for her, and that dear old friend on whose arm she leaned while she was yet a young girl.'" The colonel comes to Park Street early in the forenoon, when the mistress of the house, surrounded by her little ones, is administering dinner to them. He behaves with splendid courtesy to Miss Quigley, the governess, and makes a point of taking wine with her, and of making a most profound bow during that ceremony. Miss Quigley can't help thinking Colonel Leopold's bow very fine. She has an idea that his late majesty would have bowed in that way.
She flutteringly imparts his opinion to Lady Anne's maid, who tells her mistress, who tells Miss Ethel. who watches the Colonel the next time he takes wine with Miss Quigley, and they laugh. And then Ethel tells him, so that the gentlemen and the governess have to blush ever after when they drink wine together. When she's walking with her little charges in the park, or in that before-mentioned paradise nigh to Apsley House, faint signals of welcome appear on her waned cheeks. She knows the dear Colonel amongst a thousand horsemen. If Ethel makes for her uncle's purses, guard chains, anti-missacars, and the like beautiful and useful articles, I believe it's in reality Miss Quigley, who does four-fifths of the work, as she sits alone in the schoolroom, high, high up in that lone house, when the little ones are long since asleep, before her dismal little tea-tray, and her little desk containing her mother's letters and her mementos of home.
There are, of course, numberless fine parties in Park Lane, where the Colonel knows he'd be very welcome. But if there be grand assemblies, he does not care to come. "'I like to go to the club best,' says the Lady Anne. We talk there, as you do hear, about persons, and about Jack marrying, and Tom dying, and so forth. But we've known Jack and Tom all our lives, and so are interested in talking about them, just as you are in speaking of your own friends in habitual society. They are people whose names I have sometimes read in the newspaper, but whom I never thought of meeting until I came to your house. What has an old fellow like me to say to your young bandies or old dowagers? Amara is very odd and sometimes very catuous, my dear Colonel.
said Lady Anne, with a blush. She suffered so frightfully from tick that we were all bound to pardon her. Truth to tell, old Lady Q had been particularly rude to Colonel Newcombe and Clive. Ethel's birthday befell in the spring, on which occasion she was wont to have a juvenile assembly, chiefly of girls her own age and condition, who came, accompanied by a few governesses, and they played and sang their little duets and choruses together, and enjoyed a gentle reflection of sponge cake, jellies, tea, and the like. The colonel, who was invited to this little party, went to find presents to his favourite Ethel, and Clive and his friend J. J. made a funny series of drawings, representing the life of a young lady as they imagined it, and drawing her progress from the cradle upwards, now engaged with her doll, then with her dancing master, now marching in her backboard, now crying over her German lessons, and dressed for her first ball finally, and bestowing her hand upon a dandy of preternatural ugliness, who was kneeling at her feet as the happy man.
This picture was the delight of the laughing happy girls, except, perhaps, the little cousins from Brionstone Square, who invited to Ethel's party, but were so overpowered by the prodigious new dresses in which their mamma had attired them, that they could admire nothing but their rustling pink frocks, their enormous sashes, their lovely new silk stockings. Lady Q, coming to London, attended on the party, and presented her granddaughter with a six-punny pincushion. The colonel had sent Ethel a beautiful little gold watch and chain. Her aunt had complimented her with that refreshing work. Alison's history of Europe, richly round. Lady Q's pink cushion made rather a poor figure among the gifts, whence probably arose her ladyship's ill-humour.
Ethel's grandmother became exceedingly testy when, the Colonel arriving, Ethel ran up to him and thanked him for the beautiful watch, in return for which she gave him a kiss, which, I dare say, amply repaid Colonel Newcomb. And shortly after him, Mr. Clive arrived, looking uncommonly handsome. with that little smart beard and mustachio, with which nature had recently gifted him. As he entered, all the girls who had been admiring his pictures began to clap their hands. Mr. Clive Newcomb blushed, and looked none the worse for that indication of modesty. Lady Q had met Colonel Newcomb a half-dozen times at her daughter's house, but on this occasion she had quite forgotten him. When the Colonel made her a bow, her ladyship regarded him steadily, and beckoning her daughter to her, Asked who the gentleman was who had just kissed Bethel.
Trembling as she always did before her mother, Lady Anne explained. Lady Q said, Oh, and left Colonel Newcomb blushing, and rather embrasse the surpeisson before her. With a clapping of hands that greeted Clive's arrival, the Countess was by no means more good humant. Not aware of her wrath, the young Selle, who had also previously been presented to her, came forward presently to make her his compliments. Pray, who are you? she said, looking him very earnestly in the face. He told her his name. "'Hm,' said Lady Q. "'I have heard of you, and I have heard very little good of you. Will your ladyship please to give me your informant?' cried out Colonel Newcomb. Barnes Newcomb, who had condescended to attend his sister's little fete, and had been languidly watching the frolics of the young people, looked very much alarmed.
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21 21 - Chapter 21: Is Sentimental, but Short 26:56
Without wishing to disparage the youth of other nations, I think a well-bred English lad has this advantage over them, that his bearing is commonly more modest than theirs. He does not assume the tailcoat and the manners of manhood too early. He holds his tongue and listens to his elders. His mind blushes as well as his cheeks. He does not know how to make bows and pay compliments like the young Frenchman, nor to contradict his seniors as, I am informed, American striplings do. Boys who learn nothing else at our public schools learn at least good manners, or what we consider to be such. And with regard to the person at present under consideration, it is certain that all his acquaintances, excepting perhaps his dear cousin Barnes Newcomb, agreed in considering him as a very frank, manly, modest, and agreeable young fellow.
My friend Warrington found a grim pleasure in his company, And his bright face, droll humor, and kindly laughter were always welcome in our chambers. Honest Fred Bayham was charmed to be in his company, and used pathetically to aver that he himself might have been such a youth had he been blessed with a kind father to watch and good friends to guide his early career. In fact, Fred was by far the most didactic of Clive's bachelor acquaintances, pursued the young man with endless advice and sermons, and held himself up as a warning to Clive, and a touching example of the evil consequences of early idleness and dissipation. Gentlemen of much higher rank in the world took a fancy to the lad. Captain Jack Belzeyes introduced him to his own mess, as also to the gardener at St.
James's, and my Lord Q invited him to Qbury, his lordship's house in Oxfordshire, where Clive enjoyed hunting, shooting, and plenty of good company. Mrs. Newcomb groaned in spirit when she heard of these proceedings. And feared, feared very much that that unfortunate young man was going to ruin. And Barnes Newcomb amiably disseminated reports amongst his family that the lad was plunged in all sorts of debaucheries, that he was tipsy every night, that he was engaged in his sober moments with dice, the turf, Or worse amusements, and that his head was so turned by living with Q and Belsize that the little rascal's pride and arrogance were perfectly insufferable. Ethel would indignantly deny these charges, then perhaps credit a few of them, and she looked at Clive with melancholy eyes when he came to visit his aunt, and, I hope, prayed that heaven might mend his wicked ways.
The truth is, the young fellow enjoyed life, as one of his age and spirit might be expected to do, but he did very little harm, and meant less, and was quite unconscious of the reputation which his kind friends were making for him. There had been a long-standing promise that Clive and his father were to go to Newcomb at Christmas. And I dare say, Ethel proposed to reform the young prodigal. If prodigal he was, for she busied herself delightedly in preparing the apartments which they were to inhabit during their stay, speculated upon it in a hundred pleasant ways, putting off her visit to this pleasant neighbor, or that pretty scene in the vicinage, until her uncle should come and they should be enabled to enjoy the excursion together.
And before the arrival of her relatives, Ethel, with one of her young brothers, went to see Mrs. Mason, and introduced herself as Colonel Newcomb's niece, and came back charmed with the old lady. and eager once more in defense of Clive, when that young gentleman's character happened to be called in question by her brother Barnes, for had she not seen the kindest letter which Clive had written to old Mrs. Mason, in the beautiful drawing of his father on horseback and in regimentals, waving his sword in front of the gallant, the Bengal cavalry, which the lad had sent down to the good old woman. He could not be very bad, Ethel thought, who was so kind and thoughtful for the poor. His father's son could not be altogether a reprobate.
When Mrs. Mason, seeing how good and beautiful Ethel was, and thinking in her heart nothing could be too good or beautiful for Clive, nodded her kind old head at Miss Ethel, and said she should like to find a husband for her. Miss Ethel blushed and looked handsomer than ever, and at home, when she was describing the interview, never mentioned this part of her talk with Mrs. Mason. But the enfant terrible young Alfred did, announcing to all the company at dessert that Ethel was in love with Clive, that Clive was coming to marry her, that Mrs. Mason, the old woman at Newcomb, had told him so. "'I dare say she has told the tale all over, Newcomb,' shrieked out Mr. Barnes. "'I dare say it will be in the Independent next week.
By Jove, it's a pretty connection, and nice acquaintances this uncle of ours brings us.' A fine battle ensued upon the receipt and discussion of this intelligence. Barnes was more than usually bitter and sarcastic. Ethel haughtily recriminated, losing her temper, and then her firmness, until, fairly bursting into tears, she taxed Barnes with meanness and malignity in forever uttering stories to his cousin's disadvantage, and pursuing, with constant slander and cruelty, one of the very best of men. She rose and left the table in great tribulation. She went to her room and wrote a letter to her uncle. Blistered with tears, in which she besought him not to come to Newcomb. Perhaps she went and looked at the apartments which he had adorned and prepared for his reception.
It was for him and for his company that she was eager. She had met no one so generous and gentle, so honest and unselfish, until she had seen him. Lady Anne knew the ways of women very well. And when Ethel that night, still in great indignation and scorn against Barnes, announced that she had written a letter to her uncle begging the colonel not to come at Christmas, Ethel's mother soothed the wounded girl and treated her with peculiar gentleness and affection, and she wisely gave Mr. Barnes to understand that if he wished to bring about that very attachment, the idea of which made him so angry, He could use no better means than those which he chose to employ at present, of constantly abusing and insulting poor Clive, and awakening Ethel's sympathies by mere opposition.
An Ethel's sad little letter was extracted from the post bag, and her mother brought it to her, sealed in her own room, where the young lady burned it, being easily brought By Lady Anne's quiet remonstrances, to perceive that it was best no illusion should take place to the silly dispute which had occurred that evening, and that Clive and his father should come for the Christmas holidays, if they were so minded. But when they came, there was no Ethel at Newcombe. She was gone on a visit to her sick aunt, Lady Julia. Colonel Newcomb passed the holiday sadly without his young favorite, and Clive consoled himself by knocking down pheasants with Sir Brian's keepers, and increased his cousin's attachment for him by breaking the knees of Barnes' favorite mayor out hunting.
It was a dreary entertainment. Father and son were glad enough to get away from it and to return to their own humbler quarters in London. Thomas Newcomb had now been for three years in the possession of that felicity which he so longed after, and had any friend of his asked him if he was happy, he would have answered in the affirmative, no doubt, and protested that he was in the enjoyment of everything a reasonable man could desire. And yet, in spite of his happiness, his honest face grew more melancholy. His loose clothes hung only the looser on his lean limbs. He ate his meals without appetite. His nights were restless, and he would sit for hours silent in the midst of his family, so that Mr.
Benny first began jocularly to surmise that Tom was crossed in love, then seriously to think that his health was suffering, and that a doctor should be called to see him. And at last, to agree that idleness was not good for the colonel, and that he missed the military occupation to which he had been for so many years accustomed. The colonel insisted that he was perfectly happy and contented. What could be want more than he had? The society of his son for the present, and a prospect of quiet for his declining days. Binney vowed that his friends' days had no business to decline as yet, that a sober man of fifty ought to be at his best, and that Newcombe had grown older in three years in Europe than under a quarter of a century in the East, all which statements were true, though the colonel persisted in denying them.
He was very restless. He was always finding business in distant quarters of England. He must go visit Tom Barker, who was settled in Devonshire, or Harry Johnson, who had retired and was living in Wales. He surprised Mrs. Honeyman by the frequency of his visits to Brighton, and always came away much improved in health by the sea air, and by constant riding with the Harriers there. He appeared at Bath and at Cheltenham, where, as we know, there are many old Indians. Mr. Binney was not indisposed to accompany him on some of these jaunts, provided, the civilian said, you don't take young Hopeful, who is much better without us, and let us two old fogies enjoy ourselves together. Clive was not sorry to be left alone.
The father knew that only too well. The young man had occupations, ideas, associates, in whom the elder could take no interest. Sitting below in his blank, cheerless bedroom, Newcomb could hear the lad and his friends talking, singing, and making merry overhead. Something would be said in Clive's well-known tones, and a roar of laughter would proceed from the youthful company. They had all sorts of tricks, bywords, waggeries, of which the father could not understand the jest nor the secret. He longed to share in it, but the party would be hushed if he went in to join it, and he would come away sad at heart, to think that his presence should be a signal for silence among them, and that his son could not be merry in his company.
We must not quarrel with Clive and Clive's friends, because they could not joke and be free in the presence of the worthy gentleman. If they hushed when he came in, Thomas Newcomb's sad face would seem to look round, appealing to one after another of them and asking, why don't you go on laughing? A company of old comrades shall be merry and laughing together, and the entrance of a single youngster will stop the conversation. And if men of middle age feel this restraint with our juniors, the young ones surely have a right to be silent before their elders. The boys are always mum under the eyes of the usher. There is scarce any parent, however friendly or tender with his children, but must feel sometimes that they have thoughts which are not his or hers, and wishes and secrets quite beyond the parental control.
And, as people are vain, long after they are fathers, I, or grandfathers, and not seldom fancy that mere personal desire of domination is overweening anxiety and love for their family. No doubt that common outcry against thankless children might often be shown to prove not that the son is disobedient, but the father too exacting. When a mother, as fond mothers often will, vows that she knows every thought in her daughter's heart, I think she pretends to know a great deal too much. Nor can there be a wholesomer task for the elders, as our young subjects grow up, naturally demanding liberty and citizens' rights, than for us gracefully to abdicate our sovereign pretensions and claims of absolute control.
There's many a family chief who governs wisely and gently, who is loath to give the power up when he should. Ah, be sure, it is not youth alone that has need to learn humility. By their very virtues, and the purity of their lives, many good parents create flatterers for themselves, and so live in the midst of a filial court of parasites, and seldom without a pang of unwillingness. And often not at all. Will they consent to forego their autocracy, and exchange the tribute they have been wont to exact of love and obedience for the willing offering of love and freedom? Our good uncle was not of the tyrannists, but of the loving order of fathers. And having fixed his whole heart upon this darling youth, his son, was punished, as I suppose such worldly and selfish love ought to be punished.
So, Mr. Honeyman says, at least in his pulpit, by a hundred little mortifications, disappointments, and secret wounds, which stung not the less severely, though never mentioned for their victim. Sometimes he would have a company of such gentlemen as Mrs. Warrington, Honeyman, and Pendennis, when haply a literary conversation would ensue after dinner, and the merits of our present poets and writers would be discussed with the claret. Honeyman was well enough read in profane literature, especially of the lighter sort, and, I dare say, could have passed a satisfactory examination in Balzac, Dumas, and Paul de Kock himself. Of all whose works our good host was entirely ignorant, as, indeed, he was of graver books, and of earlier books, and of books in general.
Except those few which we have said formed his traveling library. He heard opinions that amazed and bewildered him. He heard that Byron was no great poet, though a very clever man. He heard that there had been a wicked persecution against Mr. Pope's memory and fame, and that it was time to reinstate him that his favorite, Dr. Johnson, talked admirably, but did not write English. That young Keats was a genius to be estimated in future days with young Raphael, and that a young gentleman of Cambridge, who had lately published two volumes of verses, might take rank with the greatest poets of all. Dr. Johnson not write English. Lord Byron not one of the greatest poets of the world. Sir Walter, a poet of the second order.
Mr. Pope attacked for inferiority and want of imagination. Mr. Keats and this young Mr. Tennyson of Cambridge, the chief of modern poetic literature. What were these new dicta, which Mr. Warrington delivered with a puff of tobacco smoke, to which Mr. Honeyman blandly assented and Clive listened with pleasure? Such opinions were not of the Colonel's time. He tried in vain to construe Enoni. And to make sense of Lamia. Ulysses he could understand, but what were these prodigious laudations bestowed on it? And that reverence from Mr. Wordsworth, what did it mean? Had he not written Peter Bell, and been turned into deserved ridicule by all the reviews? Was that dreary excursion to be compared to Goldsmith's Traveler, or Dr.
Johnson's imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenile? If the young man told the truth, where had been the truth in his own young days, and in what ignorance had our forefathers been brought up? Mr. Addison was only an elegant essayist and shallow trifler. All these opinions were openly uttered over the Colonel's claret, as he and Mr. Binney sat wondering at the speakers, who were knocking the guards of their youth about their ears. To Binney, the shock was not so great. The hard-headed Scotchman had read Hume in his college days and sneered at some of the gods even at that early time. But with Newcomb, the admiration for the literature of the last century was an article of belief, and the incredulity of the young men seemed rank blasphemy.
You will be sneering at Shakespeare next, he said. And was silenced, though not better pleased, when his youthful guests told him that Dr. Goldsmith sneered at him too, that Dr. Johnson did not understand him, and that Congreve, in his own day and afterwards, was considered to be, in some points, Shakespeare's superior. What do you think a man's criticism is worth, sir, cries Mr. Warrington, who says those lines of Mr. Congreve about a church? How reverent is the face of yon tall pile, whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, to bear aloft its vast and ponderous roof by its own weight made steadfast and immovable. Looking to tranquility, it strikes an awe and terror on my aching sight, etc.
What do you think of a critic who says those lines are finer than anything Shakespeare ever wrote? A dim consciousness of danger for Clive, a terror that his son had got into the society of heretics and unbelievers, came over the Colonel, and then presently, as was the want with his modest soul, a gentle sense of humility. He was in the wrong, perhaps, and these younger men were right. Who was he to set up his judgment against men of letters, educated at college? It was better that Clive should follow them than him, who had but a brief schooling, and that neglected, and who had not the original genius of his son's brilliant companions. We particularized these talks, and the little incidental mortifications which one of the best of men endured.
Not because the conversations are worth the remembering or recording, but because they presently, very materially, influenced his own and his son's future history. In the midst of the artists and their talk, the poor colonel was equally in the dark. They assaulted this academician and that, laughed at Mr. Hayden, or sneered at Mr. Eastlake, or the contrary, deified Mr. Turner on one side of the table, and on the other scorned him as a madman. Nor could Newcomb comprehend a word of their jargon. Some sense there must be in their conversation. Clive joined eagerly in it, and took one side or another. But what was all this rapture about a snuffy-brown picture called Titian, this delight in three flapping nymphs by Reubens, and so forth?
As for the vaunted antique and the Elgin marbles, it might be that that battered torso was a miracle, and that broken nose bust of perfect beauty. He tried and tried to see that they were. He went away privily and worked at the National Gallery with a catalog, and passed hours in the museum before the ancient statues, desperately praying to comprehend them. And puzzled before them as he remembered, he was puzzled before the Greek rudiments as a child, when he cried over, O kei alatis kei to alatis. Whereas, when Clive came to look at these same things, his eyes would lighten up with pleasure, and his cheeks flush with enthusiasm. He seemed to drink in color as he would a feast of wine. Before the statues he would wave his finger, following the line of grace, and burst into ejaculations of delight and admiration.
Why can't I love the things which he loves, thought Newcomb? Why am I blind to the beauties which he admires so much? And am I unable to comprehend what he evidently understands at his young age? So, as he thought what vain egotistical hopes he used to form about the boy when he was away in India, how in his plans for the happy future, Clive was to be always at his side, how they were to read, work, play, think, be married together. A sickening and humiliating sense of the reality came over him, and he sadly contrasted it with the former fond anticipations. Together they were, yet he was alone still. His thoughts were not the boy's, and his affections rewarded but with a part of the young man's heart.
Very likely, other lovers have suffered equally. Many a man and woman has been incensed and worshipped, and has shown no more feeling than is to be expected from idols. There is yonder statue in St. Peter's, of which the toe is worn away with kisses, and which sits, and will sit eternally, prim and cold. As the young man grew, it seemed to the father as if each day separated them more and more. He himself became more melancholy and silent. His friend, the civilian, marked the ennui, and commented on it in his laughing way. Sometimes he announced to the club that Tom Newcomb was in love, that he thought it was not Tom's heart but his liver that was affected, and recommended Blue Pill. O thou fond fool, who art thou to know any man's heart save thine alone?
Wherefore were wings made, and do feathers grow, but that bird should fly? The instinct that bid you love your nest leads the young ones to seek a tree and a mate of their own, as if Thomas Newcomb, by poring over poems or pictures ever so much, could read them with Clive's eyes, as if by sitting mum over his wine, but watching till the lad came home with his latchkey. When the colonel crept back to his own room in his stockings, by prodigal bounties, by stealthy affection, by any schemes or prayers, he could hope to remain first in his son's heart. One day, going into Clive's study, where the lad was so deeply engaged that he did not hear the father's steps advancing, Thomas Newcomb found his son, pencil in hand, pouring over a paper, which, blushing, He thrust hastily into his breast pocket as soon as he saw his visitor.
The father was deeply smitten and mortified. "'I am sorry you have any secrets from me, Clive,' he gasped out at length. The boy's face lighted up with humor. "'Here it is, father, if you would like to see.' And he pulled out a paper which contained neither more nor less than a copy of very flowery verses about a certain young lady who had succeeded, after I know not how many predecessors, to the place of prima donna absoluta in Clive's heart. And be pleased, madam, not to be too eager with your censure and fancy that Mr. Clive, or his chronicler, would insinuate anything wrong. I dare say you felt a flame or two before you were married yourself, and that the captain or the curate, and the interesting young foreigner with whom you danced, caused your heart to beat before you bestowed that treasure on Mr.
Kander. Clive was doing no more than your own son will do when he is eighteen or nineteen years old himself, if he is a lad of any spirit and a worthy son of so charming a lady as yourself.
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22 22 - Chapter 22: Describes a Visit to Paris; with Accidents and Incidents 42:53
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 22 describes a visit to Paris with accidents and incidents in London. Mr. Clive, as we have said, had now begun to make acquaintances of his own, and the chimney-glass in his study was decorated with such a number of cards of invitation as made his ex-fellow-student at Gandish's, young Moss, when admitted into that sanctum, stare with respectful astonishment. Lady Barry Rowe at Obie, the young Hebrew read out. Lady Barton at Obie. Dadzig, by eyes. What a tip-top swell you get it to be, Newcomb. I guess this is a different sort of business to the hops at Old Leveson, where you first learned the polka, and where we had to pay a shilling a glass for Nagus.
We had to pay. "'You never paid anything, Moss,' cries Clive, laughing, and indeed the negus imbibed by Mr. Moss did not cost that prudent young fellow a penny. "'Well, well. I suppose at these swell parties you have as bush-champaned as ever you like,' continues Moss. "'Lady Kicklebury at Obie. Small early party. Why, I declare you know the whole peerage.'" I say, if any of these swells want a little tip-top lace, a real bargain, or diamonds, you know, you might put in a word for us, and do us a good turn. Give me some of your cards, says Clive. I can distribute them about at the balls I go to. But you must treat my friends better than you serve me. Those cigars which you sent me were abominable moss.
The groom in the stable won't smoke them. What a regular swell that Newcomb has become, says Mr. Moss, to an old companion, another of Clive's fellow students. I saw him riding in the park with the Earl of Q, and Captain Belsize, and a whole lot of them. I know them all, and he'd hardly nod to me. I'll have a horse next Sunday, and then I'll see whether he'll cut me or not. Confound his heirs! For all he's such a count, I know he's got an aunt who lets lodgings at Brighton, and an uncle who'll be preaching in the bench if he don't keep a precious good look out. Newcomb is not a bit of a count, answers Moss's companion, indignantly. He don't care as straw whether a fellow's poor or rich, and he comes up to my room just as willingly as he would go to a Duke's.
He is always trying to do a friend a good turn. He draws the figure capitally. He looks proud, but he isn't, and is the best-natured fellow I ever saw. He ain't been in our place this eighteen months, says Mr. Moss. I know that. Because when he came, you were always screwing him with some bargain or other, cried the intrepid Hicks, Mr. Moss's companion for the moment. He said he couldn't afford to know you. You never let him out of your house without a pin, or a box of eau de cologne, or a bundle of cigars. And when you cut the arts for the shop, how were you and Newcomb to go on together? I should like to know. I know a relative of his who comes to our house every three months to renew a little bill, says Mr.
Moss with a grin. And I know this. If I go to the Earl of Kew in the Albany, or the Honorable Captain Belsize, Knightsbridge Barracks, they let me in soon enough. I'm told his father ain't got much money. How the deuce should I know? Or what do I care, cries the young artist, stamping the heel of his blucher on the pavement. When I was sick in that confounded Clipstone Street, I know the Colonel came to see me, and Newcomb too. Day after day and night after night. And when I was getting well, they sent me wine and jelly and all sorts of jolly things. I should like to know how often you came to see me, Moss, and what you did for a fellow. Well, I kept away because I thought you wouldn't like to be reminded of that two-pound three you owe me, Hicks.
That's why I kept away. says Mr. Moss, who, I dare say, was good-natured too. And when young Moss appeared at the billiard room that night, it was evident that Hicks had told the story, for the Water Street youth was saluted with a roar of quarries. How about that two-pound three that Hicks owes you? The artless conversation of the two youths will enable us to understand how our hero's life was speeding. Connected in one way or another with persons in all ranks, it never entered his head to be ashamed of the profession which he had chosen. People in the great world did not in the least trouble themselves regarding him, or care to know whether Mr. Clive Newcomb followed painting or any other pursuit.
And though Clive saw many of his schoolfellows in the world, those entering into the army, others talking with delight of college and its pleasures or studies, yet having made up his mind that art was his calling, he refused to quit her for any other mistress, and plied his easel very stoutly. He passed through the course of study prescribed by Mr. Gandish, and drew every cast and statue in that gentleman's studio. Grindley, his tutor, getting a curacy, Clive did not replace him, but he took a course of modern languages, which he learned with considerable aptitude and rapidity. And now, being strong enough to paint without a master, it was found that there was no good light in the house in Fitzroy Square.
And Mr. Clive must needs have an atelier hard by, where he could pursue his own devices independently. If his kind father felt any pang, even at this temporary parting, he was greatly soothed and pleased by a little mark of attention on the young man's part, of which his present biographer happened to be a witness for having walked over with Colonel Newcomb to see the new studio. With its tall center window and its curtains, and carved wardrobes, china jars, pieces of armor, and other artistical properties, the lad, with a very sweet smile of kindness and affection, lighting up his honest face, took one of two Brahma's house keys with which he was provided, and gave it to his father. "'That's your key, sir,' he said to the Colonel, "'and you must be my first sitter.' Please, Father, for though I am a historical painter, I shall condescend to do a few portraits you know.
The colonel took his son's hand and grasped it, as Clive finally put the other hand on his father's shoulder. Then Colonel Newcomb walked away into the next room for a minute or two and came back wiping his mustache with his handkerchief, and still holding the key in the other hand. He spoke about some trivial subject when he returned, but his voice quite trembled, and I thought his face seemed to glow with love and pleasure. Clive has never painted anything better than that head, which he executed in a couple of sittings, and wisely left without subjecting it to the chances of further labor. It is certain the young man worked much better after he had been inducted into this apartment of his own, and the meals at home were gayer, and the rides with his father more frequent and agreeable.
The colonel used his key once or twice, and found Clive and his friend Ridley engaged in depicting a lifeguardsman, or a muscular negro, or a melee from a neighboring crossing, who would appear as Othello. Conversing with the Clipstone Street Nymph, who was ready to represent Desdemona, Diana, Queen Eleanor, sucking poison from the arm of the planagenet of the blues, or any other model of virgin or maiden excellence. Of course our young man commenced as a historical painter, deeming that the highest branch of art, and declining. Except for preparatory studies, to operate on any but the largest canvases. He painted a prodigious battlepiece of assay, with General Wellesley, the head of the 19th Dragoons, charging the Maratha artillery and savoring them at their guns.
A piece of ordnance was dragged into the backyard, and the Colonel Studd put into requisition to supply studies for this enormous picture. Fred Bayham, a stunning likeness, appeared as the principal figure in the foreground, terrifically wounded but still of undaunted courage, slashing about amidst a group of writhing melees and bestriding the body of a dead calf horse, which Clive painted until the landlady and rest of the lodgers cried out, and for sanitary reasons the knackers removed the slaughtered charger. So large was this picture that it could only be cut out of the great window by means of artifice and coaxing, and its transport caused a shout of triumph among the little boys in Charlotte Street.
Will it be believed that the Royal Accommodations rejected the Battle of Assay? The masterpiece was so big that Fitzroy Square could not hold it, and the colonel had thoughts of presenting it to the Oriental Club. But Clive, who had taken a trip to Paris with his father as a de l'esmon after the fatigue's incident on this great work, when he saw it after a month's interval, declared the thing was rubbish and massacred Britons, malays, dragoons, artillery, and all.
1830, blank. My dear Pendennis, you said I might write you a line from Paris, and if you find in my correspondence any valuable hints for the Pell-Mell Gazette, you are welcome to use them gratis. Now I am here. I wonder I have never been here before, and that I have seen the Dieppe packet a thousand times at Brighton Pier, without thinking of going on board her. We had a rough little passage to Boulogne. We went into action as we cleared Dover Pier. When the first gun was fired and a stout old lady was carried off by a steward to the cabin, half a dozen more dropped immediately, and the crew bustled about, bringing basins for the wounded. The colonel smiled as he saw them fall. "'I'm an old sailor,' says he to a gentleman on board.
"'I was coming home, sir, and we had plenty of rough weather on the voyage. I never thought of being unwell. My boy here, who made the voyage twelve years ago last May, may have lost his sea legs, but for me, sir, here a great wave dashed over the three of us, and would you believe it?' In five minutes after, the dear old governor was as ill as all the rest of the passengers. When we arrived, we went through a line of ropes to the custom house, with a crowd of snobs jeering at us on each side, and then were carried off by a balling commissioner to Anne Hotel, where the colonel, who speaks French beautifully, you know, told the waiter to get us a petit-dejeuner soignet. On which the fellow, grinning, said, A nice fried soul, sir, nice mutton-chop, sir, in regular Temple Bar English, and brought us Harvey sauce with the chops, and the last Bell's life, to amuse us after our luncheon.
I wondered if all the Frenchman read Bell's life, and if all the inns smelled so of brandy and water. We walked out to see the town, which I dare say you know. And therefore, shan't describe. We saw some good studies of fisherwomen with bare legs, and remarked that the soldiers were very dumpy and small. We were glad when the time came to set off by the diligence, and having the coup to ourselves made a very comfortable journey to Paris. It was jolly to hear the postilions crying to their horses and the bells of the team, and to feel ourselves really in France. We took in Provender at Abbeyville and Amiens, and were comfortably landed here after about six and twenty hours of coaching. Didn't I get up the next morning and have a good walk in the Tuileries?
The chestnuts were out, and the statues all shining, and all the windows of the palace in a blaze. It looks big enough for the king of the giants to live in. How grand it is! I like the barbarous splendor of the architecture, and the ornaments profuse and enormous with which it is overladen. Think of Louis XVI, with a thousand gentlemen at his back, and a mob of yelling rufferings in front of him, giving up his crown without a fight for it, leaving his friends to be butchered, and himself sneaking into prison. No end of little children were skipping and playing in the sunshiny walks, with dresses and bright and cheeks as red as the flowers and roses in the parterres. I couldn't help thinking of Barbarou and his bloody pikemen swarming in the gardens, and fancied the Swiss in the window genre, where they were to be slaughtered when the king had turned his back.
What a great man that Carlisle is. I have read the battle in his history so often that I knew it before I had seen it. Our windows look out on the obelisk where the guillotine stood. The Colonel doesn't admire Carlisle. He says Mrs. Graham's letters from Paris are excellent, and we sought Scott's visit to Paris, and Paris revisited, and read them in the diligence. They are famous good reading. But the Palais Royale is very much altered since Scott's time. No end of handsome shops. I went there directly, the same night we arrived when the colonel went to bed. But there is none of the fun going on which Scott describes. The Le Quai d'Aplause, says Charles X, put an end to it all. Next morning, the governor had letters to deliver after breakfast, and left me at the Louvre d'Or.
I shall come and live here, I think. I feel as if I never want to go away. I had not been ten minutes in the place before I fell in love with the most beautiful creature the world has ever seen. She was standing silent and majestic in the center of one of the rooms of the statue gallery, and the very first glimpse of her struck one breathless with the sense of her beauty. I could not see the color of her eyes and hair exactly, but the latter is light, and the eyes, I should think, are gray. Her complexion is of a beautiful, warm marble tinge. She is not a clever woman, evidently. I do not think she laughs or talks much. She seems too lazy to do more than smile. She is only beautiful. This divine creature has lost an arm, which has been cut off at the shoulder, but she looks nonetheless lovely for the accident.
She may be some two and thirty years old, and she was born about two thousand years ago. Her name is the Venus of Milo. Oh Victrix! Oh Lucky Paris! I don't mean this present Lutetia, but Priam's son. How could he give the apple to any else but this enslaver, this joy of gods and men, at whose venile presence the flowers spring up, and the smiling ocean sparkles, and the soft skies beam with serene light? I wish we might sacrifice. I would bring a spotless kid, snowy-coated, and a pair of doves and a jar of honey. Yay, honey from Morels and Piccadilly. Time-flavored, Narbonian, and we would acknowledge the sovereign loveliness, and adjure the divine Aphrodite. Did you ever see my pretty young cousin, Miss Newcomb, Sir Brian's daughter?
She has a great look at the huntress, Diana. It is sometimes too proud and too cold for me. The blare of those horns is too shrill in the rapid pursuit through bush and bramble too daring. O thou generous Venus, O thou beautiful, bountiful calm, at thy soft feet let me kneel on cushions of Tyrian purple. Don't show this to Warrington, please. I never thought when I began the Pegasus was going to run away with me. I wish I had read Greek a little more at school. It's too late at my age. I shall be nineteen soon, and have got my own business. But when we return, I think I shall try and read it with cribs. What have I been doing? Spending six months over a picture of sepoys and dragoons, cutting each other's throats.
Art ought not to be a fever. It ought to be a calm, not a screaming bullfight or battle of gladiators, but a temple for placid contemplation. Wrapped worship, stately rhythmic ceremony, and music solemn and tender. I shall take down my Snyders and Rubens when I get home, and turn quietest. To think I have spent weeks in depicting bony life's guardsmen, delivering Cut One, or St. George, and painting black beggars off a crossing. What a grand thing it is to think of half a mile of pictures at the Louvre. Not But that there are a score under the old pepper boxes in Trafalgar Square as fine as the best here. I don't care for any Raphael here, as much as our own St. Catherine. There is nothing more grand.
Could the pyramids of Egypt or the Colossus of Rhodes be greater than our Sebastian? And for our backers in Ariadne, you cannot beat the best you know. But if we have fine jewels, here there are whole sets of them. There are kings in all their splendid courts round about them. J.J. and I must come and live here. Oh, such portraits of Titian. Oh, such swells by Van Dyke. I'm sure he must have been as fine a gentleman as any he've painted. It's a shame they haven't got a Sir Joshua or two. At a feast of painters, he has a right to a place, and at the high table, too. Do you remember Tom Rogers of Gandish's? He used to come to my rooms, my other rooms in the square. Tom is here with a fine, carot-y beard and a velvet jacket cut open at the sleeves to show that Tom has a shirt.
I dare say it was clean last Sunday. He has not learned French yet. but pretends to have forgotten English, and promises to introduce me to a set of the French artists as comrades. There seems to be a scarcity of soap among these young fellows, and I think I shall cut off my mustachios. Only Warrington will have nothing to laugh at when I come home. The colonel and I went to dine at the Café de Paris, and afterwards to the opera. Ask, For Vuit de Marien, when you dine here, we dined with a tremendous French swell, the Vicomte de Florac, officier d'ordinance, to one of the princes, and son of some old friends of my father's. They are of very high birth, but very poor. He will be a duke when his cousin, the Duc d'Ivry, dies.
His father is quite old. The Viscount was born in England. He pointed out to us no end the famous people at the opera, a few of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and ever so many of the present people, Monsieur Thierrys, and Count Mollet, and George Sand, and Victor Hugo, and Jules Janin. I forget half their names, and yesterday we went to see his mother, Madame de Florac. I suppose she was an old flame of the colonel's, for their meeting was uncommonly ceremonious and tender. It was like an elderly Sir Charles Granderson saluting a middle-aged Miss Byron. And only fancy. The colonel has been here once before since his return to England. It must have been last year, when he was away for ten days, whilst I was painting that rubbishing picture of the Black Prince waiting on King John.
Madame de F. is a very grand lady, and must have been a great beauty in her time. There are two pictures by Gerard in her salon. Of her and Monsieur de Florac, Monsieur de Florac all swell, powder, thick eyebrows, hooked nose, no end of stars, ribbons, and embroidery. Madame also is in the dress of the empire. Pensive, beautiful, black velvet, and a look something like my cousin's. She wore a little old-fashioned brooch yesterday and said, Voila, le reconnoir de vous. Last year when you were here, It was in the country, and she smiled at him, and the dear old boy gave a sort of groan and dropped his head in his hand. I know what it is. I've gone through it myself. I kept for six months of absurd ripping of that infernal little flirt, Fanny Freeman.
Don't you remember how angry I was when you abused her? Your father and I knew each other when we were children, my friend, the countess said to me, in the sweetest French accent. He was looking into the garden of the house where they live, in the Rue Saint-Dominique. You must come and see me often, always. You remind me of him, and she added, with a very sweet, kind smile, do you like best to think that he was better looking than you, or that you excel him? I said I should like to be like him, but who is? There are cleverer fellows, I dare say, but where is there such a good one? I wonder whether he was very fond of Madame de Florac. The old Count does not show. He is quite old, and wears a pigtail.
We saw it bobbing over his garden chair. He lets the upper part of his house, Major General the Honorable Zeno F. Pokey of Cincinnati, U.S., lives in it. We saw Mrs. Pokey's carriage in the court, and her footmen smoking cigars there. A tottering old man with fever legs, as old as old Count of Florac, seemed to be the only domestic who waited on the family below. Madame de Florac and my father talked about my profession. The Countess said it was a belle carrière. The Colonel said it was better than the army. Ah oui, monsieur, said she very sadly. And then he said that presently I should very likely come to study at Paris, when he knew there would be a kind friend to watch over son Garçon. But you will be here to watch over him yourself, mon ami.
Says the French lady. Father shook his head. I shall very probably have to go back to India, he said. My furlough is expired. I am now taking my extra leave. If I can get my promotion, I need not return. Without that, I cannot afford to live in Europe, but my absence in all probability will be but very short, he said. And Clive is old enough now to go on without me. Is this the reason why Father has been so gloomy for some months past? I thought it might have been some of my follies which made him uncomfortable. And you know I have been trying my best to amend. I have not half such a tale as billed this year as last. I owe scarcely anything. I have paid off Moss every half-penny for his confounded rings and gimcracks.
I asked father about this melancholy news as we walked away from Madame de Florac. He is not near so rich as we thought. Since he has been at home, he says he has spent greatly more than his income, and is quite angry at his own extravagance. At first, he thought he might have retired from the army altogether, but after three years at home, he finds he cannot live upon his income. When he gets his promotion as full colonel, he will be entitled to a thousand a year. That, and what he has invested in India, and a little in this country, will be plenty for both of us. He never seems to think of my making money, by my profession. Why, suppose I sell the Battle of Assay for five hundred pounds? That will be enough to carry me on ever so long.
Without dipping into the purse of the dear old father. The Viscount de Florac called to dine with us. The colonel said he did not care about going out, and so the Viscount and I went together. To our frères Provençaux. He ordered the dinner, and of course I paid. Then we went to a little theater, and he took me behind the scenes. Such a queer place. We went to the loge of Mademoiselle Vine, who acted the part of Le Petit Tambour, in which she sings a famous song with a drum. He asked her and several literary fellows to supper at the Café Anglès. And I came home ever so late, and lost twenty Napoleons at a game called Boyette. It was all the change out of a twenty-pound note which dear old Benny gave me before we set out.
With a quotation out of Horace, you know, about Nectucourias Bernpuer. Oh, me! How guilty I felt as I walked home, at ever so much o'clock, to the Hotel de la Torras, and sneaked into our apartment. But the Colonel was sound asleep. His dear old boots stood sentries at his bedroom door, and I slunk into mine as silently as I could. P.S. Wednesday. There's just one scrap of paper left. I have got J.J.'s letter. He has been to the private view of the academy, said that his own picture is in, and the battle, I say, is refused. Smee told him it was too big. I dare say it's very bad. I'm glad I'm away, and the fellows are not condoling with me. Please go and see Mr. Binney. He has come to grief. He rode the Colonel's horse, came down on the pavement, and wrenched his leg.
And I'm afraid the greys. Please look at his legs. We can't understand John's report of them. He, I mean Mr. B., was going to Scotland to see his relations when the accident happened. You know he has always been going to Scotland to see his relations. He makes light of the business. And says the Colonel is not to think of coming to him. And I don't want to go back just yet, to see all the fellows from Gandish's and the Life Academy, and have them grinning at my misfortune. The Governor would send his regards, I dare say. But he is out, and I am always yours affectionately, Clive Newcomb. P.S. He tipped me himself this morning. Isn't he a kind, dear old fellow? Arthur Pendennis, Esq. to Clive Newcomb, Esq.
Pell-Mell Gazette, Journal of Politics, Literature and Fashion, 225 Catherine Street, Strand. Dear Clive, I regret very much for Fred Bayham's sake, who has lately taken the responsible office of Fine Arts Critic for the PG. That your extensive picture of the Battle of Essay has not found a place in the Royal Academy exhibition. F.B. is at least fifteen shillings out of pocket by its rejection, as he had prepared a flaming eulogium of your work, which, of course, is so much waste paper in consequence of this calamity. Never mind. Courage, my son. The Duke of Wellington, you know, was best back at Seringfadim before he succeeded at SI. I hope you will fight other battles, and that fortune in future years will be more favorable to you.
The town does not talk very much of your discomfiture. You see, the parliamentary debates are very interesting just now, and somehow, the Battle of SI did not seem to excite the public mind. I have been to Fitzroy Square, both to the stables and the house. The hungum's legs are very well. The horse slipped on his side and not on his knees, and has received no sort of injury. Not so, Mr. Binney. His ankle is much wrenched and inflamed. He must keep his sofa for many days, perhaps weeks. But you know he is a very cheerful philosopher. and endures the evils of life with much equanimity. His sister had come to him. I don't know whether that may be considered as a consolation of his evil or an aggravation of it.
You know he uses the sarcastic method in his talk, and it was difficult to understand from him whether he was pleased or bored by the embraces of his relative. She was an infant when he last beheld her, on his departure to India. She is now, to speak with respect, a very brisk, plump, pretty little widow, having, seemingly, recovered from her grief at the death of her husband, Captain McKenzie, in the West Indies. Mr. Binney was just on the point of visiting his relatives, who reside at Musselburgh, near Edinburgh. when he met with the fatal accident which prevented his visit to his native shores. His account of his misfortune and his lonely condition was so pathetic that Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter put themselves into the Edinburgh steamer and rushed to console his sofa.
They occupy your bedroom and sitting-room, which latter Mrs. Mackenzie says no longer smells of tobacco smoke. As it did when she took possession of your den. If you have left any papers about any bills, any bill they do, I make no doubt the ladies have read every single one of them, according to the amiable habits of their sex. The daughter is a bright little blue-eyed fair-haired lass, with a very sweet voice, in which she sings, unaided by instrumental music, and seated on a chair in the middle of the room. The artless ballads of her native country. I had the pleasure of hearing The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee and Jack of Hazeldeen from her ruby lips two evenings since. Not indeed for the first time in my life, but never from such a pretty little singer.
Though both ladies speak our language with something of the tone usually employed by the inhabitants of the northern part of Britain, their accent is exceedingly pleasant. and indeed by no means so strong as Mr. Binney's own, for Captain McKenzie was an Englishman, for whose sake his lady modified her native Musselburgh pronunciation. She tells many interesting anecdotes of him, of the West Indies and of the distinguished regiment of infantry to which the captain belonged. Miss Rosa is a great favorite with her uncle. And I have had the good fortune to make their stay in the metropolis more pleasant by sending them orders from the Pell-Mell Gazette for the theaters, panoramas, and the principal sites in town.
For pictures they do not seem to care much. They thought the National Gallery a dreary exhibition, and in the Royal Academy could be got to admire nothing but the picture of McCullough of McCullough. By our friend of the like name. But they think Madame Tussaud's interesting exhibition of waxwork the most delightful in London. And there I had the happiness of introducing them to our friend, Mr. Frederick Bam, who subsequently, on coming to this office with his valuable contributions on the fine arts, made particular inquiries as to their pecuniary means. And expressed himself instantly ready to bestow his hand upon the mother or daughter, provided old Mr. Binney would make a satisfactory settlement.
I got the ladies a box at the opera, whether they were attended by Captain Goby of their regiment, godfather to Miss, and where I had the honor of paying them a visit. I saw your fair young cousin, Miss Newcomb, in the lobby with her grandmama, Lady Q. Mr. Bayham, with great eloquence, pointed out to the Scotch ladies the various distinguished characters in the house. The opera delighted them, but they were astounded at the ballet, from which mother and daughter retreated in the midst of the fire of pleasantries of Captain Goby. I can fancy that officer at mess, and how brilliant his anecdotes must be when the company of ladies does not restrain his genial flow of humor. Here comes Mr. Baker with the proofs.
In case you don't see the P.G. of Gallaghanies, I send you an extract from Bam's article on the Royal Academy, where you will have the benefit of his opinion on the works of some of your friends.
Moses bringing home the gross of green spectacles. Smith, R. A. Perhaps poor Goldsmith's exquisite little work has never been so great a favorite as in the present age. We have here, in a work by one of our most eminent artists, an homage to the genius of him, who touched nothing which he did not adorn. And the charming subject is handled in the most delicious manner by Mr. Smith. The Chiriscuro is admirable. The impasto is perfect. Perhaps a very captious critic might object to the foreshortening of Moses' left leg, but where there is so much to praise justly, the Pell-Mell Gazette does not care to condemn. Four Twenty Hour and the Public's Favorite Brown R.A. Treats us to a subject from the best of all stories, the tale which laughs Spain's chivalry away, the ever-new Don Quixote.
The incident which Brown has selected is the Don's attack on the flock of sheep. The sheep are in his best manner, painted with all his well-known facility and brio. Mr. Brown's friendly rival, Hopkins, has selected Gil Blas for an illustration this year. And The Robber's Cavern is one of the most masterly of Hopkins productions. Great Rooms 33. Portrait of Cardinal Caspetto. O'Gog's Day, A-R-A. A neighborhood of Corpo de Baco. Evening, a Contadina and a Traste Favrino dancing at the door of a Lacondo to the music of a Piferol. Since his visit to Italy, Mr. O'Gogste seems to have given up the scenes of Irish humor with which he used to delight us, and the romance, the poetry, the religion of Italia La Bella from the subjects of his pencil.
The scene near Coppo di Bacco, we know the spot well, and have spent many a happy month in its romantic mountains, is most characteristic. Cardinal Cospetto, we must say, is a most truculent perlate, and not certainly an ornament to his church. 49, 210, 311. Smee, R.A. Portraits which a Reynolds might be proud of. A Van Dyke or Claude might not disown. Sir Brian Newcomb, in the costume of a deputy lieutenant. Major General Sir Thomas the Boots, KCB. Painted for the fiftieth dragoons are triumphs, indeed, of this noble painter. Why have we no picture of the sovereign and her august consort from Smee's brush? When Charles II picked up Titian's mall stick, he observed to a courtier, a king you can always have, a genius comes but rarely.
While we have a Smee among us, And a monarch whom we admire, may the one be employed to transmit to posterity the beloved features of the other. We know our lubrications are red in high places, and respectfully insinuate verbon sapriente. 1906. The McCollop of McCollop. A. McCollop. is a noble work of a young artist, who, in depicting the gallant chief of a hardy Scottish clan, has also represented a romantic highland landscape, in the midst of which, his foot upon his native heath, stands a man of splendid symmetrical figure and great facial advantages. We shall keep our eye on Mr. McCollop. 1367. Oberon and Titania. Ridley. This sweet and fanciful little picture draws crowds round about it, and is one of the most charming and delightful works of the present exhibition.
We echo the universal opinion in declaring that it shows not only the greatest promise, but the most delicate and beautiful performance. The Earl of Kew, we understand, bought the picture at the private view, and we congratulate the young painter heartily upon his successful debut. He is, we understand, a pupil of Mr. Gandish. Where is that admirable painter? We miss his bold canvases and grand historic outline. I shall alter a few inaccuracies in the composition of our friend, F.B., who has, as he says, drawn it uncommonly mild in the above criticism. In fact, two days since, he brought in an article of quite a different tendency, of which he retains only the two last paragraphs. But he has, with great magnanimity, recalled his previous observations, and, indeed, he knows as much about pictures as some critics I could name.
Goodbye, my dear Clive. I send my kindest regards to your father and think you had best see as little as possible. Dear Clive, A.P.
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23 23 - Chapter 23: In which we hear a Soprano and a Contralto 41:21
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 23, in which we hear a soprano and a contralto. The most hospitable and polite of colonels would not hear of Mrs. McKenzie and her daughter quitting his house when he returned to it, after six weeks' pleasant sojourn in Paris. Nor, indeed, did his fair guests show the least anxiety or intention to go away. Mrs. McKenzie had a fine merry humor of her own. She was an old soldier's wife, she said and knew when her quarters were good. And I suppose, since her honeymoon, when the captain took her to Harrogate and Cheltenham, stopping at the first hotels and traveling in a chaise and pair the whole way, she had never been so well off as in that roomy mansion near Tottenham Court Road.
Of her mother's house at Musselburgh, she gave a ludicrous but dismal account. Eh, James, she said, I think if you had come to Mama as you threatened, you would not have stayed very long. It's a wearisome place. Dr. McCraw boys with her, and it's sermons and psalm singing from morning till night. My little Josie takes kindly to the life there, and I left her behind, poor little darling. It was not fair to bring three of us to take possession of your house, dear James, but my poor little Rosie was just withering away there. It's good for the dear child to see the world a little, and a kind uncle, who is not afraid of us now he sees us, is he? Kind Uncle James was not at all afraid of little Rosie, whose pretty face and modest manners and sweet songs and blue eyes She cheered and sued the old bachelor.
Nor was Rosie's mother less agreeable and pleasant. She had married the captain. It was a love match, against the will of her parents, who had destined her to be the third wife of old Dr. Mamal, when very young. Many sorrows she had had, including poverty, the captain's imprisonment for debt, and his demise. But she was of a gay and lightsome spirit. She was but thirty-three years old and looked five and twenty. She was active, brisk, jovial, and alert. Good-looking that it was a wonder she had not taken a successor to Captain McKenzie. James Binney cautioned his friend, the Colonel, against the attractions of the buxom siren. And laughingly, would ask Clive how he would like Mrs. Mackenzie for a mama.
Colonel Newcomb felt himself very much at ease regarding his future prospects. He was very glad that his friend James was reconciled to his family, and hinted to Clive that the late Captain Mackenzie's extravagance had been the cause of the rupture between him and his brother-in-law. Who had helped that prodigal captain repeatedly during his life, and in spite of family quarrels, had never ceased to act generously to his widowed sister and her family. But I think, Mr. Clive, said he, that as Miss Rosa is very pretty, and you have a spare room at your studio, you had best take up your quarters in Charlotte Street, as long as the ladies are living with us. Clive was nothing loath to be independent, but he showed himself to be a very good, home-loving youth.
He walked home to breakfast every morning, dined often, and spent the evenings with the family. Indeed, the house was a great deal more cheerful for the presence of the two pleasant ladies. Nothing could be prettier than to see the two ladies tripping downstairs together. Mama's pretty arm wronged Rosie's pretty waist. Mama's talk was perpetually of Rosie. That child was always gay, always good, always happy. That darling girl woke with a smile on her face. It was sweet to see her. Uncle James, in his driveway, said he dared to say it was very pretty. Go away, you droll. Dear old kind Uncle James, Rosie's Mama would cry out. You old bachelors are wicked old things. Uncle James used to kiss Rosie very kindly and pleasantly.
She was as modest, as gentle, as eager to please Colonel Newcomb as any little girl could be. It was pretty to see her tripping across the room with his coffee cup or peeling walnuts for him after dinner with her white, plump little fingers. Mrs. Irons, the housekeeper, naturally detested Mrs. McKenzie, and was jealous of her, though the latter did everything to soothe and coax the governess of the two gentlemen's establishment. She praised her dinners, delighted in her puddings, must beg Mrs. Irons to allow her to see one of those delicious puddings made, and to write the receipt for her. That Mrs. Mackenzie might use it when she was away. It was Mrs. Irons' belief that Mrs. Mackenzie never intended to go away.
She had no idea of ladies, as were ladies, coming into her kitchen. The maids vowed that they heard Miss Rosa crying, and Mama scolding her in her bedroom for all she was so soft-spoken. How was that jug broke? And that chair smashed in the bedroom. That day there was such an awful row up there. Mrs. Mackenzie played admirably, in the old-fashioned way, dances, reels, and Scotch and Irish tunes, the former of which filled James Binney's soul with delectation. The good mother naturally desired that her darling should have a few good lessons of the piano, while she was in London. Rosie was eternally strumming upon an instrument which had been taken upstairs for her special practice, and the colonel, who was always seeking to do harmless jobs of kindness for his friends, bethought him of Little Miss Cannes, the governess at Ridley's, whom he recommended as an instructress.
"'Anybody whom you recommend, I'm sure, dear Colonel, we shall like,' said Mrs. Mackenzie, who looked as black as thunder and had probably intended to have Monsieur Quatremains or Signor Twainkey Dio, and the little governess came to her pupil. Mrs. Mackenzie treated her very gruffly and haughtily at first, but as soon as she heard Miss Cann play, the widow was pacified, nay, charmed. Monsieur Quatremains charged a guinea for three-quarters of an hour, while Miss Cann thankfully took five shillings for an hour and a half, and the difference of twenty lessons, for which dear Uncle James paid, went into Mrs. Mackenzie's pocket. And thence probably, onto her pretty shoulders and head in the shape of a fine silk dress and a beautiful French bonnet, in which Captain Gobi said upon his life, she didn't look twenty.
The little governess trotting home after her lesson would often look into Clive's studio in Charlotte Street, where her two boys, as you call Clive and J.J., were at work each at his easel. Clive used to laugh and tell us, who joked him, about the widow and her daughter, what Miss Cannes said about them. Mrs. Mack was not all honey, it appeared. If Rosie played incorrectly, Mama fluid her with prodigious vehemence of language, and sometimes with a slap on poor Rosie's back. She must make Rosie wear tight boots and stamp on her little feet if they refuse to enter into the sliver. I blushed with the indiscretion of Miss Cannes, but she actually told J.J. that Mama insisted upon lacing her so tight as nearly to choke the poor little lass.
Rosie did not fight. Rosie always yielded, and the scolding over and the tears dried would come simpering downstairs with Mama's arm round her waist, and her pretty, artless, happy smile for the gentlemen below. Besides the Scottish songs without music, she sang ballads at the piano very sweetly. Mama used to cry at these ditties. That child's voice brings tears into my eyes, Mr. Newcomb, she would say. She has never known a moment's sorrow yet. Heaven grant, heaven grant, she may be happy. But what shall I be when I lose her? "'Why, my dear, when you lose, Rosie, you'll console yourself with Josie,' says droll Mr. Benny from the sofa, who perhaps saw the maneuver of the widow. The widow laughs heartily and reely.
She places a handkerchief over her mouth. She glances at her brother with a pair of eyes full of knowing mischief. "'Oh, dear James,' she says, "'you don't know what it is to have a mother's feelings.' "'I can partly understand them,' says James. "'Rosie, sing me that pretty little French song.'" Mrs. Mackenzie's attention to Clive was really quite affecting. If any of his friends came to the house, she took them aside and praised Clive to them. The colonels she adored. She had never met with such a man or seen such a manner. The manners of the Bishop of Tobago were beautiful. And he certainly had one of the softest and finest hands in the world, but not finer than Colonel Newcombe's. Look at his foot!
And she put out her own, which was uncommonly pretty, and suddenly withdrew it, with an arch glance meant to represent a blush. My shoe would fit it. When we were at Coventry Island, Sir Peregrine Blandy Who succeeded a poor dear, Sir Rodden Crawley, I saw his dear boy was gazetted to a lieutenant colonelcy in the guards last week. Sir Peregrine, who was one of the Prince of Wales' most intimate friends, was always said to have the finest manner and presence of any man of his day. And very grand and noble he was. But I don't think he was equal to Colonel Newcomb. I don't really think so. Do you think so, Mr. Honeyman? What a charming discourse that was last Sunday. I know there were two pair of eyes not dry in the church.
I could not see the other people just for crying myself. Oh, but I wish we could have you at Musselberg. I was bred a Presbyterian, of course, but in much traveling through the world with my dear husband, I came to love his church. At home, we sit under Dr. McCraw, of course, but he is so awfully long. Four hours every Sunday at least, morning and afternoon. It nearly kills poor Rosie. Did you hear a voice at your church? The dear girl is delighted with the chance. Rosie, were you not delighted with the chance? If she is delighted with the chants, Honeyman is delighted with the chantress and her mama. He dashes the fair hair from his brow. He sits down to the piano and plays one or two of them, warbling a faint vocal accompaniment and looking as if he would be lifted off the screw music stool and flutter up to the ceiling.
Oh, it's just a raffix, says the widow. It's just the breath of incense in the peeling of the organ at the Cathedral at Montreal. Rosie doesn't remember Montreal. She was a wee-wee child. She was born on the voyage out and christened at sea. You remember Gobi. Gad, I promised and vowed to teach her her catechism. Gad, but I haven't, says Captain Gobi. We were between Montreal and Quebec for three years with the 100th, and the 120th Highlanders, and the 33rd Dragoon Guards a part of the time. Fifthly, commanded them, and a very jolly time we had, much better than the West Indies, where a fellow's liver goes to the deuce with hot pickles and sangaree. Mackenzie was a devilish, wild fellow, whispers Captain Gobi to his neighbor, the present biographer indeed.
And Mrs. Mack was as pretty a little woman as ever you set eyes on. Captain Gobi winks and looks peculiarly sly as he makes this statement. Our regiment wasn't on your side of India, Colonel. And in the interchange are such delightful remarks, and with music and song, the evening passes away. Since the house had been adorned by the fair presence of Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter, Honeyman said, always gallant in behavior and flowery in expression, it seemed as if spring had visited it. Its hospitality was infested with a new grace. Its ever-welcomed little reunions were doubly charming. But why did these ladies come if they were to go away again? How? How would Mr. Benny console himself, not to mention others, if they left him in solitude?
We have no wish to leave my brother James in solitude, cries Mrs. Mackenzie, frankly laughing. We like London a great deal better than Musselberg. All that we do ejaculates the blushing Rosie. And we will stay as long as ever my brother will keep us, continues the widow. Uncle James is so kind and dear, says Rosie. I hope he won't send me and Mama away. He were a brute, a savage if he did, cries Benny, with glances of rapture towards the two pretty faces. Everybody liked them. Benny received their caresses very good-humoredly. The Colonel liked every woman under the sun. Clive laughed and joked and waltzed alternately with Rosie and her mama. The latter was the briskest partner of the two. The unsuspicious widow, poor, dear innocent, would leave her girl at the painting room and go shopping herself.
But little J.J. also worked there. Being occupied with his second picture, and he was almost the only one of Clive's friends whom the widow did not like. She pronounced the quiet little painter a pert, little, obtrusive, underbred creature. In a word, Mrs. Mackenzie was, as the phrase is, setting her cap so openly at Clive that none of us could avoid seeing her play. And Clive laughed at her simple maneuvers as merrily as the rest. She was a merry little woman. We gave her and her pretty daughter a luncheon in Lamb Court Temple, in Sibbright's chambers, luncheon from Dick's Coffee House, ices and dessert from Partington's in the Strand. Miss Rosie, Mr. Sibwright, our neighbor in Lamb Court, and the Reverend Charles Honeyman sang very delightfully after lunch.
There was quite a crowd of porters, laundresses, and boys to listen in the court. Mr. Paley was disgusted with the noise we made. In fact, the party was perfectly successful. We all liked the widow, and if she did set her pretty ribbons at Clive, Why should not she? We all liked the pretty, fresh, modest Rosie. Why, even the grave old benchers in the temple church, when the ladies visited on Sunday, winked their reverend eyes with pleasure as they looked at those two uncommonly smart, pretty, well-dressed, fashionable women. Ladies, go to the temple church. You will see more young men, and receive more respectful attention there than in any place, except perhaps at Oxford or Cambridge. Go to the temple church.
Not, of course, for the admiration which you will excite and which you cannot help, but because the sermon is excellent, the choral service is beautifully performed, and the church so interesting as a monument of the thirteenth century, and as it contains the tombs of those dear Knights Templars. Mrs. Mackenzie could be grave or gay, according to her company. Nor could any woman be of more edifying behavior when an occasional Scottish friend bringing a letter from darling Josie, or a recommendatory letter from Josie's grandmother, paid a visit in Fitzroy Square. Little Miss Cann used to laugh and wink knowingly, saying, You will never get back your bedroom, Mr. Clive. You may be sure that Miss Josie will come in a few months, and perhaps old Mrs.
Binney. Only no doubt she and her daughter do not agree. But the widow has taken possession of Uncle James, and she will carry off somebody else if I am not mistaken. Should you like a stepmother, Mr. Clive, or should you prefer a wife? Whether the fair lady tried her wiles upon Colonel Newcomb, the present writer has no certain means of ascertaining. But I think another image occupied his heart. And this Cersei tempted him no more than a score of other enchantresses who had tried their spells upon him. If she tried, she failed. She was a very shrewd woman, quite frank in her talk, when such frankness suited her. She said to me, Colonel Newcomb has had some great passion once upon a time, I am sure of that, and has no more heart to give away.
The woman who had his must have been a very lucky woman, though I dare say she did not value what she had, or did not live to enjoy it, or something or other. You see tragedies in some people's faces. I recollect when we were in Coventry Island, there was a chaplain there, a very good man, a Mr. Bell, and married to a pretty little woman who died. The first day I saw him, I said, I know that man has had a great grief in his life. I am sure that he left his heart in England. You gentlemen who write books, Mr. Pendennis, and stop at the third volume, know very well that the real story often begins afterwards. My third volume ended when I was sixteen, and was married to my poor husband. Do you think all our adventures ended then?
And that we lived happy ever after? I live for my darling girls now. All I want is to see them comfortable in life. Nothing can be more generous than my dear brother James has been. I am only his half-sister, you know, and was an infant in arms when he went away. He had differences with Captain McKenzie, who was headstrong and imprudent, and I own my poor dear husband was in the wrong. James could not live with my poor mother. Neither could, by possibility, suit the other. I have often, I own, longed to come and keep house for him. His home, the society he sees, of men of talents like Mr. Warrington and—and I won't mention names, or pay compliments to a man who knows human nature so well—as the author of Walter Lorraine.
This house is pleasanter a thousand times than Musselburgh, pleasanter for me and my dearest Rosie, whose delicate nature shrunk and withered up in my poor mamma's society. She was never happy except in my room, the dear child. She's all gentleness and affection. She doesn't seem to show it, but she has a most wonderful appreciation of wit, of genius, and talent of all kinds. She always hides her feelings, except from her fond old mother. I went up into our room yesterday and found her in tears. I can't bear to see her eyes red or to think of her suffering. I asked her what ailed her, and kissed her. She is a tender plant, Mr. Pendennis. Heaven knows with what care I have nurtured her. She looked up smiling on my shoulder.
She looked so pretty. Oh, Mama," the darling child said, I couldn't help it. I have been crying over Walter Lorraine. Enter Rosie. Rosie, darling, I have been telling Mr. Pendennis what a naughty, naughty child you were yesterday, and how you read a book which I told you you shouldn't read. For it is a very wicked book, and though it contains some sad, sad truths, it is a great deal too misanthropic—is that the right word? I'm a poor soldier's wife and no scholar, you know—and a great deal too bitter. And though the reviews praise it, and the clever people—we are poor, simple country people—we won't praise it. Sing, dearest, that little song, profuse kisses to Rosie, that pretty thing that Mr.
Pendennis likes. I am sure that I will sing anything that Mr. Pendennis likes, says Rosie, with her candid bright eyes, and she goes to the piano and warbles, patty, patty, with her sweet, fresh, artless voice. More caresses follow. Mama is in a rapture. How pretty they look, the mother and daughter, two lilies twining together. The necessity of an entertainment at the temple lunch from Dick's, as before mentioned, dessert from Partington's, Sib Wright's spoons, his boy to eight hours, nay, Sib himself, and his rooms, which are so much more elegant than ours, and where there is a piano and guitar. All these thoughts pass in rapid and brilliant combination in the pleasant Mr. Pendennis's mind.
How delighted the ladies are with the proposal! Mrs. Mackenzie claps her pretty hands and kisses Rosie again. If osculation is a mark of love, surely Mrs. Mack is the best of mothers. I may say, without false modesty, that our little entertainment was most successful. The champagne was iced to a nicety. The ladies did not perceive that our laundress, Mrs. Flanagan, was intoxicated very early in the afternoon. Percy Sivright sang admirably, and with the greatest spirit, ditties in many languages. I am sure Miss Rosie thought him, as indeed he is, one of the most fascinating young fellows about town. To her mother's excellent accompaniment, Rosie sang her favorite songs. By the way, her stock was very small.
Five, I think, was the number. Then the table was moved into a corner, where the quivering moles of jelly seemed to keep time to the music, and whilst Percy played, two couples of waltzers actually whirled round the little room. No wonder that the court below was thronged with admirers, that Paley the reading man was in a rage, and Mrs. Flanagan in a state of excitement. Ah, pleasant days, happy gold dingy chambers illuminated by youthful sunshine, merry songs and kind faces. It is pleasant to recall you. Some of those bright eyes shine no more. Some of those smiling lips do not speak. Some are not less kind, but sadder than in those days, of which the memories revisit us for a moment and sink back into the gray past.
The dear old Colonel beat time with great delight to the songs. The widow lit his cigar with her own fair fingers. That was the only smoke permitted during the entertainment. George Warrington himself not being allowed to use his cutty pipe. Though the gay little widow said that she had been used to smoking in the West Indies, and I dare say spoke the truth. Our entertainment lasted actually until after dark, and a particularly neat cab being called from St. Clemens by Mr. Benny's boy, you may be sure we all conducted the ladies to their vehicle. And many a fellow returning from his lonely club that evening into chambers must have envied us the pleasure of having received two such beauties. The clerical bachelor was not to be outdone by the gentlemen of the bar, and the entertainment at the temple was followed by one at Honeyman's lodgings, which, I must own, greatly exceeded ours in splendor.
For Honeyman had his luncheon from Gunter's, and if he had been Miss Rosie's mother, giving a breakfast to the dear girl on her marriage, the affair could not have been more elegant and handsome. We had but two bouquets at our entertainment. At Honeyman's, there were four upon the breakfast table, besides a great pineapple, which must have cost the rogue three or four guineas, and which Percy Sibwright delicately cut up. Rosie thought the pineapple delicious. The dear thing does not remember the pineapples in the West Indies, cries Mrs. Mackenzie, and she gave us many exciting narratives of entertainments at which she had been present at various colonial governors' tables. After luncheon, our host hoped we should have a little music.
Dancing, of course, could not be allowed. That," said Honeyman with his soft, bleeding sigh, "'were scarcely clerical. You know, besides, you are in a hermitage, and," with a glance round the table, "'must put up with Cenobite's fare. The fare was, as I have said, excellent. The wine was bad, as George and I and Sib agreed, and insofar we flattered ourselves that our feast altogether excelled the Parsons. The champagne especially was such stuff that Warrington remarked on it to his neighbor, a dark gentleman, with a tuft to his chin, and splendid rings and chains. The dark gentleman's wife and daughter, with the other two ladies invited by our host, The elder was splendidly dressed. Poor Mrs.
Mackenzie's simple gimcracks, though she displayed them to the most advantage, and could make an Ormolu bracelet go as far as another woman's emerald clasps, whereas nothing compared to the other lady's gorgeous jewelry. Her fingers glittered with rings innumerable. The head of her smelling bottle was as big as her husband's gold snuff-box, and of the same splendid material. Our ladies, it must be confessed, came in a modest cab from Fitzroy Square. These arrived in a splendid little open carriage with white ponies and harness all over brass, which the Lady of the Rings drove with a whip that was a parasol. Mrs. Mackenzie, standing at Honeyman's window, with her arm round Rosie's waist, viewed this arrival perhaps with envy.
"'My dear Mr. Honeyman, whose are those beautiful horses?' cries Rosie with enthusiasm. The Divine says with a faint blush, "'It is Mrs. Sherrick and Miss Sherrick, who have done me the favor to come to luncheon.' Wine-merchant. Oh, thinks Mrs. Mackenzie, who has seen Sherrick's brass plate on the cellar door of Lady Whittlesey's chapel, and hence, perhaps, she was a trifle more malneloquent than usual, and entertained us with stories of colonial governors and their ladies, mentioning no persons but those who had handles to their names, as the phrase is. Although Sherrick had actually supplied the champagne, which Warrington abused to him in confidence, the wine-merchant was not wounded. On the contrary, he roared with laughter at the remark, and some of us smiled who understood the humor of the joke.
As for George Warrington, he scarce knew more about the town than the ladies opposite to him, who, yet more innocent than George, thought the champagne very good. Mrs. Sherrick was silent during the meal, looking constantly up at her husband, as if alarmed and always in the habit of appealing to that gentleman, who gave her, as I thought, knowing glances and savage winks, which made me augur that he bullied her at home. Mrs. Sherrick was exceedingly handsome. She kept the fringe curtains of her eyes constantly down, But when she lifted them up towards Clive, who was very attentive to her, the rogue never sees a handsome woman, but to this day he continues the same practice. When she looked up and smiled, she was indeed a beautiful young creature to behold, with her pale forehead, her thick arched eyebrows, her rounded cheeks, and her full lips slightly shaded.
How shall I mention the word? Slightly penciled, after the manner of the lips of the French governess, Mademoiselle Lenoir. Percy Sibright engaged Miss Mackenzie with his usual grace and affability. Mrs. Mackenzie did her very utmost to be gracious, but it was evident the party was not altogether to her liking. Poor Percy, about whose means and expectations she had in the most natural way in the world, asked information from me. was not perhaps a very eligible admirer for darling Rosie. She knew not that Percy can no more help gallantry than the sun can help shining. As soon as Rosie had done eating up her pineapple, artlessly confessing to Percy Sibwright's inquiries, that she preferred it to the rasps and henny blobs in her grandmama's garden.
Now, dearest Rosie, cries Mrs. Mack, Now, a little song. You promised Mr. Pendennis a little song. Honeyman whisks open the piano in a moment. The widow takes off her cleaned gloves. Mrs. Sherrick's Renew, and of the best Paris make. And little Rosie sings number one, followed by number two, with very great applause. Mother and daughter entwine as they quit the piano. Brava, brava, says Percy Sibwright. Does Mr. Clive Newcomb say nothing? His back is turned to the piano, and he is looking with all his might into the eyes of Miss Sherrick. Percy sings a Spanish cigodilla, or a German lead, or a French romance, or a Neapolitan casanette, which, I am bound to say, excites very little attention. Mrs.
Ridley is sending in coffee at this juncture. of which Mrs. Sherrick partakes, with lots of sugar, as she has partaken of numberless things before—chicken, plovers' eggs, prawns, aspics, jellies, creams, grapes, and what not. Mr. Honeyman advances, and with deep respect asks if Mrs. Sherrick and Miss Sherrick will not be persuaded to sing. She rises and bows, and again takes off the French gloves, and shows the large white hands glittering with rings, and summoning Emily, her daughter, they go to the piano. "'Can she sing?' whispers Mrs. Mackenzie. "'Can she sing after eating so much?' "'Can she sing indeed?' Oh, you poor ignorant Mrs. Mackenzie. Why, when you were in the West Indies, if you ever read the English newspapers, you must have read of the fame of Miss Fullerup.
Mrs. Sherrick is no other than the famous artist who, after three years of brilliant triumphs at the Scala, the Pergola, the San Carlo, the Opera in England, forsook her profession, rejected a hundred suitors, and married Sherrick, who was Mr. Cox's lawyer, who failed, as everybody knows, as manager of Drury Lane. Sherrick Like a man of spirit, would not allow his wife to sing in public after his marriage. But in private society, of course, she is welcome to perform, and now, with her daughter, who possesses a noble contralto voice, she takes her place royally at the piano, and the two sing so magnificently that everybody in the room, with one single exception, is charmed and delighted. And that little Miss Cann herself creeps up the stairs, and stands with Mrs.
Ridley at the door to listen to the music. Miss Sherrick looks doubly handsome as she sings. Clive Newcomb is in a rapture. So is good-natured Miss Rosie, whose little heart beats with pleasure, and who says quite unaffectedly to Miss Sherrick, with delight and gratitude beaming from her blue eyes, Why did you ask me to sing, when you sing so wonderfully, so beautifully yourself? Do not leave the piano, please. Do sing again. And she puts out a kind little hand towards the superior artist, and blushing, leads her back to the instrument. I'm sure me and Emily will sing for you as much as you like, dear, says Mrs. Sherrick, nodding to Rosie good-naturedly. Mrs. Mackenzie, who has been biting her lips and drumming the time on a side-table, forgets at last the pain of being vanquished in admiration of the conquerors.
It was cruel of you not to tell us, Mr. Honeyman, she says, of the treat you had in store for us. I had no idea we were going to meet professional people. Mrs. Sherrick's singing is indeed beautiful. If you come up to our place in the Regent's Park, Mr. Newcomb, Mr. Sherrick says, Mrs. S. and Emily will give you as many songs as you like. How do you like the house in Fitzroy Square? Anything wanting down there? I'm a good landlord to a good tenant. Don't care what I spend on my houses. Lose by them sometimes. Name a day when you'll come to us, and I'll ask some good fellows to meet you. Your father and Mr. Binney came once. That was when you were a young chap. They didn't have a bad evening, I believe.
You just come and try us. I can give you as good a glass of wine as most, I think. And he smiles, perhaps thinking of the champagne which Mr. Warrington had slighted. "'I've had the close carriage for my wife this evening,' he continues, looking out of window at a very handsome Brogham, which has just drawn up there. That little pair of horses sips prettily together, don't they? Fond of horses? I know you are. See you in the park, and going by our house sometimes. The Colonel sits a horse uncommonly well. So do you, Mr. Newcomb. I've often said—' Why don't they get off their horses and say, Sherrick, we've come for a bit of lunch and a glass of sherry. Name a day, sir, Mr. P., will you be in it?
Clive Newcomb named a day, and told his father of the circumstance in the evening. The colonel looked grave. There was something which I did not quite like about Mr. Sherrick, said that acute observer of human nature. It was easy to see that the man is not quite a gentleman. I don't care what a man's trade is, Clive. Indeed, who are we? To give ourselves airs upon that subject. But when I am gone, my boy, and there is nobody near you who knows the world as I do, you may fall into designing hands, and rogues may lead you into mischief. Keep a sharp lookout, Clive. Mr. Pendennis here knows that there are designing fellows abroad, and the dear old gentleman gives a very knowing nod as he speaks.
When I am gone, keep the lad from harm's way, Pendennis. Meanwhile, Mr. Sherrick has been a very good and obliging landlord, and a man who sells wine may certainly give a friend a bottle. "'I am glad you had a pleasant evening, boys. Ladies, I hope you have had a pleasant afternoon. Miss Rosie, you will come back to make tea for the old gentleman?' James begins to get about briskly now. He walked to Hanover Square, Mrs. Mackenzie, without hurting his ankle in the least. "'I am almost sorry that he is getting well,' says Mrs. Mackenzie sincerely. "'He won't want us when he is quite cured.' Indeed, my dear creature, cries the Colonel, taking her pretty hand and kissing it, he will want you, and he shall want you.
James no more knows the world than Miss Rosie here, and if I had not been with him, would have been perfectly unable to take care of himself. When I am gone to India, somebody must stay with him, and my boy must have a home to go to, says the kind soldier, his voice dropping. I had been in hopes that his own relatives would have received him more. But never mind about that," he cried more cheerfully. Why, I may not be absent a year. I perhaps need not go at all. I am second for promotion. A couple of our old generals may drop any day, and when I get my regiment, I come back to stay, to live at home. Meantime, Whilst I am gone, my dear lady, you will take care of James, and you will be kind to my boy.
That I will," said the widow, radiant with pleasure. And she took one of Clive's hands and pressed it for an instant, and from Clive's father's kind face there beamed out that benediction which always made his countenance appear to me among the most beautiful of human faces.
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24 24 - Chapter 24: In which the Newcome Brothers once more meet together in Unity 38:54
XXIV. In which the Newcombe brothers once more meet together in unity. His narrative, as the judicious reader no doubt is aware, is written maturely and at ease, long after the voyage is over whereof it recounts the adventures and perils, the winds adverse and favorable, the storms, shoals, shipwrecks, islands, and so forth, which Clive Newcomb met in his early journey in life. In such a history, events follow each other without necessarily having a connection with one another. One ship crosses another ship. And after a visit from one captain to his comrade, they sail away each on his course. The Clive Newcomb meets a vessel which makes signals that she is short of bread and water, and after supplying her, our captain leaves her to see her no more.
One or two of the vessels with which we commenced the voyage together part company in a gale, and founder miserably. Others, after being woefully battered in the tempest, make port. or are cast upon surprising islands where all sorts of unlooked-for prosperity awaits the lucky crew. Also, no doubt, the writer of the book, into whose hands Clive Newcomb's logs have been put, and who is charged with the duty of making two octavo volumes out of his friend's story, dresses up the narrative in his own way, utters his own remarks in place of Newcomb's, Makes fanciful descriptions of individuals and incidents with which he never could have been personally acquainted, and commits blunders which the critics will discover.
A great number of the descriptions in Cook's Voyages, for instance, were notoriously invented by Dr. Hawksworth, who did the book. So, in the present volumes, where dialogues are written down which the reporter could by no possibility have heard, And where motives are detected which the persons actuated by them certainly never confided to the writer, the public must once for all be warned that the author's individual fancy very likely supplies much of the narrative, and that he forms it as best he may, out of stray papers, conversations reported to him, and his knowledge, right or wrong, of the characters of the persons engaged.
And as is the case with the most orthodox histories, The writer's own guesses or conjectures are printed in exactly the same type as the most ascertained patent facts. I fancy, for my part, that the speeches attributed to Clive, the Colonel, and the rest, are as authentic as the orations in Sallust or Livy, and only implore the truth-loving public to believe that incidents here told, and which passed very probably without witnesses, were either confided to me subsequently as compiler of this biography, or are of such a nature that they must have happened, from what we know happened after. For example, when you read such words as, Qua Romanus on a battered Roman stone, your profound antiquarian knowledge enables you to assert that Sinatus Populus was also inscribed there at some time or other.
You take a mutilated statue of Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, or Verorum, and you pop him on a wanting hand, an absent foot, or a nose which time or barbarians have defaced. You tell your tales as you can, and state the facts as you think they must have been. In this manner, Mr. James, historiographer to Her Majesty, Titus Livius, Professor Allison, Robinson Crusoe and all historians proceeded. Blunders there must be in the best of these narratives, and more asserted than they can possibly know or vouch for. To recur to our own affairs, and the subject at present in hand, I am obliged here to supply from conjecture a few points of the history, which I could not know from actual experience or hearsay.
Clive, let us say, is Romanus, And we must add Sinatus Populusque to his inscription. After Mrs. Mackenzie and her pretty daughter had been for a few months in London, which they did not think of quitting, although Mr. Binney's wounded little leg was now as well and as brisk as ever it had been, a redintegration of love began to take place between the colonel and his relatives in Park Lane. How should we know that there had ever been a quarrel, or at any rate a coolness? Thomas Newcomb was not a man to talk at length of any such matter, though a word or two occasionally dropped in conversation by the simple gentleman might lead persons who chose to interest themselves about his family affairs to form their own opinions concerning them.
After that visit of the colonel and his son to Newcomb, Ethel was constantly away with her grandmother. The colonel went to see his pretty little favorite at Brighton. And once, twice, thrice, Lady Q.'s door was denied to him. The knocker of that door could not be more fierce than the old lady's countenance, when Newcombe met her in her chariot driving on the cliff. Once, forming the loveliest of a charming Amazonian squadron, led by Mr. Whiskon, the riding-master, when the colonel encountered his pretty Ethel, she greeted him affectionately, it is true. There was still the sweet look of candour and love in her eyes. But when he rode up to her, she looked so constrained, when he talked about Clive so reserved, when he left her so sad, that he could not but feel pain and commiseration.
Back he went to London, having in a week only caught this single glance of his darling. This event occurred while Clive was painting his picture of the Battle of Essay before mentioned. During the struggles incident on which composition, he was not thinking much about Miss Ethel, or his papa, or any other subject but his great work. Whilst Assay was still in progress, Thomas Newcomb must have had an explanation with his sister-in-law, Lady Anne, to whom he frankly owned the hopes which he had entertained for Clive, and who must as frankly have told the colonel that Ethel's family had very different views for that young lady to those which the simple colonel had formed. A generous early attachment, the colonel thought, is the safeguard of a young man.
To love a noble girl, to wait a while in struggle, and haply do some little achievement in order to win her, the best task to which his boy could set himself. If two young people so loving each other were to marry on rather narrow means, what then? A happy home was better than the finest house in Mayfair. A generous young fellow, such as, please God his son was, loyal, upright, and a gentleman, might pretend surely to his kinswoman's hand without derogation. And the affection he bore Ethel himself was so great, and the sweet regard with which she returned it, that the simple father thought his kindly project was favored by heaven, and prayed for its fulfillment, and pleased himself to think, when his campaigns were over and his sword hung on the wall, what a beloved daughter he might have to soothe and cheer his old age.
With such a wife for his son, and child for himself, he thought the happiness of his last years might repay him for friendless boyhood, lonely manhood, and cheerless exile. And he imparted his simple scheme to Ethel's mother, who no doubt was touched as he told his story, for she always professed regard and respect for him, and in the differences which afterwards occurred in the family, and the quarrels which divided the brothers, still remained faithful to the good colonel. But Barnes Newcombe Esquire was the head of the house and the governor of his father and all Sir Brian's affairs. And Barnes Newcomb Esquire hated his cousin Clive and spoke of him as a beggarly painter, an impudent snob, an infernal young puppy, and so forth.
And Barnes, with his usual freedom of language, imparted his opinions to his uncle Hobson at the bank, and uncle Hobson carried them home to Mrs. Newcomb in Bryanstone Square. And Mrs. Newcomb took an early opportunity of telling the colonel her opinion on the subject. and of bewailing that love for aristocracy which she saw actuated some folks. And the Colonel was brought to see that Barnes was his boy's enemy, and words very likely passed between them, for Thomas Newcomb took a new banker at this time, and, as Clive informed me, was in very great dudgeon because Hobson Brothers wrote to him to say that he had overdrawn his account. "'I am sure there is some screw loose,' the sagacious youth remarked to me.
And the colonel and the people in Park Lane are at variance, because he goes there very little now. And he promised to go to court when Ethel was presented, and he didn't go. Some months after the arrival of Mr. Binney's niece and sister in Fitzroy Square, the fraternal quarrel between the Newcombs must have come to an end, for that time at least, and was followed by a rather ostentatious reconciliation. And pretty little Rosie Mackenzie was the innocent and unconscious cause of this amiable change in the minds of the three brethren, as I gathered from a little conversation with Mrs. Newcomb, who did me the honor to invite me to her table. As she had not vouchsafed this hospitality to me for a couple of years previously, and perfectly stifled me with affability when we met, as her invitation came quite at the end of the season, When almost everybody was out of town, and a dinner to a man is no compliment, I was at first for declining this invitation, and spoke of it with great scorn, when Mr.
Newcomb orally delivered it to me at Bay's Club. "'What?' said I, turning round to an old man of the world, who happened to be in the room at the time. "'What do these people mean by asking a fellow to dinner in August, and taking me up after dropping me for two years?' "'My good fellow,' says my friend. It was my kind old uncle, Major Pendennis, indeed. "'I have lived long enough about town never to ask myself questions of that sort. In the world, people drop you and take you up every day. You know Lady Cheddar by sight? I have known her husband for forty years. I have stayed with them in the country for weeks at a time.' She knows me as well as she does King Charles at Charing Cross, and a deuced deal better, and yet for a whole season she will drop me, pass me by as if there was no such person in the world.
Well, sir, what do I do? I never see her. I give you my word I am never conscious of her existence, and if I meet her at dinner, I'm no more aware of her than the fellows in the play are of Bankuel. "'What's the end of it? She comes round. Only last Tuesday she came round, and said Lord Cheddar wanted me to go down to Wiltshire.' I asked after the family. "'You know Henry Turningham is engaged to Miss Rennet, a deuced good match for the Cheddars.' "'We shook hands, and are as good friends as ever.' "'I don't suppose she'll cry when I die, you know,' said the worthy old gentleman with a grin. "'Nor shall I go into very deep mourning if anything happens to her.' You were quite right to say to Newcomb that you did not know whether you were free or not, and would look at your engagements when you got home and give him an answer.
A fellow of that rank has no right to give himself heirs. But they will, sir. Some of those bankers are as high and mighty as the oldest families. They marry noblemen's daughters by Jove, and think nothing is too good for them. But I should go if I were you, Arthur. I dined there a couple of months ago, and the bankress said something about you. That you and her nephew were much together, that you were sad wild dogs, I think. Something of that sort. Gad, ma'am, says I, boys will be boys. And they grow to be men, says she, nodding her head. Queer little woman, devilish pompous. Dinner confoundedly long, stupid, scientific.
The old gentleman was on this day inclined to be talkative and confidential, and I set down some more remarks which he made concerning my friends. "'Your Indian colonel,' says he, seems a worthy man. The Major quite forgot having been in India himself, unless he was in company with some very great personage. He don't seem to know much of the world, and we are not very intimate. Fitzroy Square is a devilish long way off for a fellow to go for a dinner, and entre nous the dinner is rather queer and the company still more so.' It's right for you who are a literary man to see all sorts of people, but I'm different, you know, so Newcomb and I are not very thick together. They say he wanted to marry your friend to Lady Anne's daughter, an exceedingly fine girl.
One of the prettiest girls come out this season. I hear the young men say so, and that shows how monstrous ignorant of the world Colonel Newcomb is. His son could no more get that girl than he could marry one of the royal princesses. Mark my words, they intend Miss Newcombe for Lord Q. Those banker fellows are wild after grand marriages. Q will sow his wild oats, and they'll marry her to him, or, if not to him, to some man of high rank. His father Wellam was a weak young man, but his grandmother, old lady Q, is a monstrous, clever old woman, too severe with her children, one of whom ran away and married a poor devil without a shilling. Nothing could show a more deplorable ignorance of the world than poor Newcomb supposing his son could make such a match as that with his cousin.
Is it true that he is going to make his son an artist? I don't know what the deuce the world is coming to. An artist? By gad, in my time, a fellow would as soon have thought of making his son a hairdresser or a pastry-cook, by gad. And the worthy major gives his nephew two fingers and trots off to the next club in St. James's Street, of which he is a member. The virtuous hostess of Brian Stone Square was quite civil and good-humoured when Mr. Pendennis appeared at her house, and my surprise was not inconsiderable when I found the whole party from St. Pancras there assembled. Mr. Binney, the colonel and his son, Mrs. Mackenzie looking uncommonly handsome and perfectly well-dressed, and Miss Rosie in pink crape, with pearly shoulders and blushing cheeks, and beautiful fair ringlets, as fresh and comely a sight as it was possible to witness.
Scarcely had we made our bows and shaken our hands and imparted our observations about the fineness of the weather, when, behold, as we look from the drawing-room windows into the cheerful square of brinestone, a great family coach arrives. Driven by a family coachman in a family wig, and we recognize Lady Anne Newcomb's carriage, and see her ladyship, her mother, her daughter, and her husband, Sir Brian, descend from the vehicle.
It is quite a family party, whispers the happy Mrs. Newcomb to the happy writer conversing with her in the niche of the window. Knowing your intimacy with our brother, Colonel Newcomb, We thought it would please him to meet you here. Will you be so kind as to take Miss Newcomb to dinner? Everybody was bent upon being happy and gracious. It was, My dear brother, how do you do? From Sir Brian. My dear Colonel, how glad we are to see you. How well you look. From Lady Anne. Miss Newcomb ran up to him. with both hands out, and put her beautiful face so close to his that I thought upon my conscience she was going to kiss him. And Lady Q, advancing in the frankest manner, with a smile I must own rather awful playing round her many wrinkles, round her ladyship's hooked nose, and displaying her ladyship's teeth, a new and exceedingly handsome set, held out her hand to Colonel Newcomb, and said briskly, Colonel, it is an age since we met.
She turns to Clive with equal graciousness and good humor, and says, Mr. Clive, let me shake hands with you. I have heard all sorts of good of you, that you have been painting the most beautiful things, that you are going to be quite famous. Nothing can exceed the grace and kindness of Lady Anne Newcomb towards Mrs. Mackenzie. The pretty widow blushes with pleasure at this greeting. And now Lady Anne must be introduced to Mrs. Mackenzie's charming daughter, and whispers in the delighted mother's ear, she is lovely. Rosie comes up looking rosy indeed, and executes a pretty curtsy with a great deal of blushing grace. Ethel has been so happy to see her dear uncle that as yet she has had no eyes for anyone else, until Clive advancing, Those bright eyes become brighter still with surprise and pleasure as she beholds him.
For being absent with his family in Italy now, and not likely to see this biography for many, many months, I may say that he is a much handsomer fellow than our designer has represented. And if that wayward artist should take this very scene for the purpose of illustration, he is requested to bear in mind that the hero of this story will wish to have justice done to his person. There exists in Mr. Newcomb's possession a charming little pencil-drawing of Clive at this age, and which Colonel Newcomb took with him when he went, whither he is about to go in a very few pages, and brought back with him to this country. A Florida peril becomes some men, as simple raiment suits others. And Clive, in his youth, was of the ornamental class of mankind, A customer to tailors, a wearer of handsome rings, shirts, studs, mustachios, long hair, and the like.
Nor could he help, in his costume or his nature, being picturesque and generous and splendid. He was always greatly delighted with that Scotch man-at-arms in Quentin Durward, who twists off an inch or two of his gold chain to treat a friend and pay for a bottle. He would give a comrade a ring or a fine-jeweled pin if he had no money. Silver dressing-cases and brocade morning-gowns were in him a sort of propriety at this season of his youth. It was a pleasure to persons of colder temperament to sun themselves in the warmth of his bright looks and generous humor. His laughter cheered one like wine. I do not know that he was very witty, but he was pleasant. He was prone to blush. The history of a generous trait moistened his eyes instantly.
He was instinctively fond of children, and of the other sex from one year old to eighty. Coming from the Derby once, a merry party, and stopped on the road from Epsom in a lock of carriages, during which the people in the carriage ahead saluted us with many vituperative epithets, and seized the heads of our leaders, Clive in a twinkling jumped off the box, and the next minute we saw him engaged with a half-dozen of the enemy, his hat gone, His fair hair flying off his face, his blue eyes flashing with fire, his lips and nostrils quivering wrath, his right and left hand hitting out. Que c'était un plaisir voir! His father sat back in the carriage, looking with delight and wonder. Indeed, it was a great sight.
Policeman X separated the warriors. Clive ascended the box again with a dreadful wound in the coat, which was gashed from the waist to the shoulder. I hardly ever saw the elder Newcombe in such a state of triumph. The postboys quite stared at the gratuity he gave them, and wished they might drive his lordship to the Oaks. All the time we have been making this sketch, Ethel is standing, looking at Clive, and the blushing youth casts down his eyes before hers. Her face assumes a look of arch humor. She passes a slim hand over the prettiest lips, and a chin with the most lovely of dimples, thereby indicating her admiration of Mr. Clive's mustachio and imperial. They are of a warm yellowish chestnut color, and have not yet known the razor.
He wears a low cravat, a shirt-front of the finest lawn, with ruby buttons. His hair, of a lighter color, waves almost to his manly shoulders broad.
Upon my word, my dear Colonel, says Lady Q, after looking at him and nodding her head shrewdly. I think we were right. No doubt right in everything your ladyship does, but in what particularly? asks the colonel. Right to keep him out of the way. Ethel has been disposed of these ten years. Did not Anne tell you? How foolish of her! But all mothers like to have young men dying for their daughters. Your son is really the handsomest boy in London. Who is that conceited-looking young man in the window? Mr. Penwhut? Has your son really been very wicked? I was told he was a sad scapegrace. I never knew him to do, and I don't believe he ever thought anything that was untrue or unkind or ungenerous, says the Colonel.
If anyone has belied my boy to you, and I think I know who his enemy has been. The young lady is very pretty, replies Lady Q, stopping the colonel's further outbreak. How very young her mother looks! Ethel, my dear, Colonel Newcomb must present us to Mrs. Mackenzie and Miss Mackenzie. And Ethel, giving a nod to Clive, with whom she has talked for a minute or two, again puts her hand in her uncle's, and walks towards Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter. And now let the artist, if he has succeeded in drawing Clive to his liking, cut a fresh pencil and give us a likeness of Ethel. She is seventeen years old, rather taller than the majority of women, of a countenance somewhat grave and haughty, but on occasion brightening with humor or beaming with kindliness and affection.
Too quick to detect affectation or insincerity in others, too impatient of dullness or pomposity, She is more sarcastic now than she became when after years of suffering had softened her nature. Truth looks out of her bright eyes and rises up armed and flashes scorn or denial, perhaps too readily, when she encounters flattery or meanness or imposture. After her first appearance in the world, if the truth must be told, this young lady was popular neither with many men nor with most women. The innocent dancing youth who pressed round her, attracted by her beauty, were rather afraid after a while of engaging her. This one felt dimly that she despised him, another that his simpering commonplaces, the lights of how many well-bred maidens, only occasioned Miss Newcomb's laughter.
Young Lord Croesus, whom all maidens and matrons were eager to secure, was astounded to find that he was utterly indifferent to her. and that she would refuse him twice or thrice in an evening, and that as many times with poor Tom Spring, who was his father's ninth son, and only at home till he could get a ship and go to sea again. The young women were frightened at her sarcasm. She seemed to know what faddez they whispered to their partners as they paused in the waltzes, and Fanny, who was luring Lord Croesus towards her with her blue eyes, dropped them guiltily to the floor when Ethel's turned towards her. And Cecilia sang more out of time than usual. And Clara, who was holding Freddy and Charlie and Tommy round her enchanted by her bright conversation and witty mischief, became dumb and disturbed when Ethel passed her with her cold face.
And old lady Hookham, who was playing off her little mini now at young Jack Gorget of the guards, now at the eager and simple Bob Bateson of the cold streams, would slink off when Ethel made her appearance on the ground, whose presence seemed to frighten away the fish and the angler. No wonder that the other Mayfair nymphs were afraid of this severe Diana, whose looks were so cold and whose arrows were so keen. But those who had no cause to heed Diana's shot or coldness might admire her beauty. Nor could the famous Parisian marble, which Clive said she resembled, be more perfect in form than this young lady. Her hair and eyebrows were jet black. These latter may have been too thick, according to some physiognomists, giving rather a stern expression to the eyes, and hence causing those guilty ones to tremble who came under her lash.
But her complexion was as dazzlingly fair and her cheeks as red as Miss Rosie's own, who had a right to those beauties being a blonde by nature. In Miss Ethel's black hair there was a slight natural ripple, as when a fresh breeze blows over the melanhy dhul. A ripple, such as Roman ladies nineteen hundred years ago, and our own beauties a short time since, endeavored to imitate by art, paper, and, I believe, crumpling-irons. Her eyes were gray, her mouth rather large, her teeth as regular and bright as Lady Q's own, her voice low and sweet, and her smile, when it lighted up her face and eyes, as beautiful as spring sunshine. Also, they could lighten and flash often, and sometimes, though rarely, rain.
As for her figure, but as this tall slender form is concealed in a simple white muslin robe, of the sort which I believe is called demi-toilette, in which her fair arms are enveloped, and which is confined at her slim waist by an azure ribbon, and descends to her feet, Let us make a respectful bow to that fair image of youth, health, and modesty, and fancy it as pretty as we will. Miss Ethel made a very stately courtesy to Mrs. Mackenzie, surveying that widow calmly, so that the elder lady looked up and fluttered. But towards Rosie she held out her hand, and smiled with the utmost kindness, and the smile was returned by the other. And the blushes with which Miss Mackenzie was always ready at this time became her very much.
As for Mrs. Mackenzie, the very largest curve that shall not be a caricature and actually disfigure the widow's countenance, a smile so wide and steady, so exceedingly ridant, indeed as almost to be ridiculous, may be drawn upon her buxom face. If the artist chooses to attempt it as it appeared during the whole of this summer evening, before dinner came, when people ordinarily look very grave, when she was introduced to the company, when she was made known to our friends Julia and Maria. The darling child, lovely little dears, how like their papa and mama! When Sir Brian Newcomb gave her his arm downstairs to the dining room, When anybody spoke to her. When John offered her meat, or the gentleman in the white waistcoat wine, when she accepted or when she refused these refreshments.
When Mr. Newcomb told her a dreadfully stupid story. When the colonel called cheerily from his end of the table, My dear Mrs. Mackenzie, you don't take any wine to-day. May I not have the honor of drinking a glass of champagne with you? When the new boy from the country upset some sauce upon her shoulder, when Mrs. Newcomb made the sign for departure, and I have no doubt in the drawing-room when the ladies retired thither. Mrs. Mack is perfectly awful, Clive told me afterwards, since that dinner in Brionstone Square. Lady Q. and Lady Anne are never out of her mouth. She has had white muslin dresses made just like Ethel's for herself and her daughter. She has bought a peerage, and knows the pedigree of the whole Kew family.
She won't go out in a cab now without the boy on the box, and in the plate for the cards, which she has established in the drawing-room, you know, Lady Kew's pasteboard always will come up to the top, though I poke it down whenever I go into the room. As for poor Lady Trotter, the governess of St. Kitts, you know, and the Bishop of Tobago, they are quite bowled out. Mrs. Mack has not mentioned them for a week. During the dinner, it seemed to me that the lovely young lady by whom I sat cast many glances towards Mrs. Mackenzie, which did not betoke in particular pleasure. Miss Ethel asked me several questions regarding Clive, and also respecting Miss Mackenzie. Perhaps her questions were rather downright and imperious, and she patronized me in a manner that would not have given all gentlemen pleasure.
I was Clive's friend, his schoolfellow. Had I seen him a great deal? Know him very well? Very well, indeed. Was it true that he had been very thoughtless, very wild? Who told her so? That was not her question. With a blush. It was not true, and I ought to know. He was not spoiled. He was very good-natured, generous, told the truth. He loved his profession very much, and had great talent. Indeed she was very glad. Why do they sneer at his profession? It seemed to her quite as good as her father's and brother's. Were artists not very dissipated? Not more so, nor often so much as other young men? Was Mr. Binney rich, and was he going to leave all his money to his niece? How long have you known them?
Is Miss Mackenzie as good-natured as she looks? Not very clever, I suppose. Mrs. Mackenzie looks very... No, thank you, no more. Grandmama. She is very deef and cannot hear, scolded me for reading the book you wrote, and took the book away. I afterwards got it and read it all. I don't think there was any harm in it. Why do you give such bad characters of women? Don't you know any good ones? Yes, two as good as any in the world. They are unselfish. They are pious. They are always doing good. They live in the country. Why don't you put them into a book? Why don't you put my uncle into a book? He is so good that nobody could make him good enough. Before I came out, I heard a young lady, Lady Clavering's daughter, Miss Amory, sing a song of yours.
I have never spoken to an author before. I saw Mr. Lyon at Lady Poppenjoy's and heard him speak. He said it was very hot, and he looked so, I am sure. Who is the greatest author now alive? You will tell me when you come upstairs after dinner. And the young lady sails away, following the matrons, who rise and ascend to the drawing-room. Miss Newcomb has been watching the behavior of the author by whom she sat, curious to know what such a person's habits are, whether he speaks and acts like other people, and in what respect authors are different from persons in society. When we had sufficiently enjoyed claret and politics below stairs, The gentlemen went to the drawing-room to partake of coffee and the ladies' delightful conversation.
We had heard previously the tinkling of the piano above, and the well-known sound of a couple of Miss Rosie's five songs. The two young ladies were engaged over an album at a side-table when the males of the party arrived. The book contained a number of Clive's drawings made in the time of his very early youth for the amusement of his little cousins. Miss Ethel seemed to be very much pleased with these performances, which Miss Mackenzie likewise examined with great good nature and satisfaction. So she did the views of Rome, Naples, Marble Hill in the county of Sussex, etc. in the same collection. So she did the Berlin cockatoo and spaniel, which Mrs. Newcomb was working in idle moments. So she did the books of beauty, flowers of loveliness, and so forth.
She thought the prints very sweet and pretty. She thought the poetry very pretty and sweet. Which did she like best? Mr. Nimini's Lines to a Bunch of Violets, or Miss Pimini's Stanzas to a Wreath of Roses? Miss Mackenzie was quite puzzled to say which of these masterpieces she preferred. She found them alike so pretty. She appealed, as in most cases, to Mama. "'How, my darling love, can I pretend to know?' Mama says. I have been a soldier's wife, battling about the world. I have not had your advantages. I had no drawing-masters nor music-masters as you have. You, dearest child, must instruct me in these things. This poses Rosie, who prefers to have her opinions dealt out to her like her frocks, bonnets, handkerchiefs, her shoes and gloves, and the order thereof, the lumps of sugar for her tea, The proper quantity of raspberry jam for breakfast.
Who trusts for all supplies corporeal and spiritual to her mother. For her own part, Rosie is pleased with everything in nature. Does she love music? Oh, yes. Bellini and Donizetti? Oh, yes. Dancing. They had no dancing at Grandmama's, but she adores dancing, and Mr. Clive dances very well indeed. A smile from Miss Ethel at this admission. Does she like the country? Oh, she is so happy in the country. London? London is delightful, and so is the seaside. She does not really know which she likes best, London or the country, for Mama is not near her to decide, being engaged listening to Sir Brian, who is laying down the law to her, and smiling, smiling with all her might. In fact, Mr. Newcomb says to Mr.
Pendennis, in his droll, humorous way, that woman grins like a Cheshire cat. Who was the naturalist who first discovered that peculiarity of the cats in Cheshire? In regard to Miss Mackenzie's opinions, then, it is not easy to discover that they are decided or profound or original, but it seems pretty clear that she has a good temper and a happy, contented disposition, and the smile which her pretty countenance wears shows off to great advantage the two dimples on her pink cheeks. Her teeth are even and white, her hair of beautiful color, and no snow can be whiter than her fair round neck and polished shoulders. She talks very kindly and good-naturedly with Julia and Maria, Mrs. Hobson's precious ones, until she is bewildered by the statements which those young ladies make regarding astronomy, botany, and chemistry.
All of which they are studying. My dears, I don't know a single word about any of these abstruse subjects. I wish I did, she says. And Ethel Newcomb laughs. She, too, is ignorant upon all these subjects. I am glad there is someone else, says Rosie with naivete, who is as ignorant as I am. And the younger children, with a solemn air, say they will ask Mama leave to teach her. So everybody, somehow, great or small, seems to protect her, and the humble, simple, gentle little thing wins a certain degree of good will from the world, which is touched by her humility and her pretty sweet looks. The servants in Fitzroy Square waited upon her much more kindly than upon her smiling, bustling mother. Uncle James is especially fond of his little Rosie.
Her presence in his study never discomposes him. Whereas his sister fatigues him with the exceeding activity of her gratitude, and her energy in pleasing. As I was going away, I thought I heard Sir Brian Newcombe say, It. But what it was, of course, I cannot conjecture. It will do very well. The mother seems a superior woman.
End of chapter 24. Read by Jeffrey Wilson, Ames, Iowa. 2021.
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25 25 - Chapter 25: Is passed in a Public-house 35:36
I had no more conversation with Miss Newcomb that night, who had forgotten her curiosity about the habits of authors. When she had ended her talk with Miss Mackenzie, she devoted the rest of the evening to her uncle, Colonel Newcomb, and concluded by saying, "'And now you will come and ride with me tomorrow, uncle, won't you?' which the colonel faithfully promised to do." And she shook hands with Clive very kindly. And with Rosie, very frankly, but as I thought with rather a patronizing air, and she made a very stately bow to Mrs. Mackenzie, and so departed with her father and mother. Lady Q had gone away earlier. Mrs. Mackenzie informed us afterwards that the Countess had gone to sleep after her dinner, if it was at Mrs.
Mack's story about the Governor's Ball at Tobago. And the quarrel for precedence between the Lord Bishop's Lady, Mrs. Rotchet, and the Chief Justice's wife, Lady Barwise, I should not be at all surprised. A handsome fly carried off the ladies to Fitzroy Square, and the two worthy Indian gentlemen in their company, Clive and I walking, with the usual Havana to light us home. And Clive remarked that he supposed there had been some difference between his father and the bankers, for they had not met for ever so many months before, and the colonel always had looked very gloomy when his brothers were mentioned. And I can't help thinking, says the astute youth, that they fancied I was in love with Ethel.
I know the colonel would have liked me to make up to her, and that may have occasioned the row. Now, I suppose, they think I am engaged to Rosie. What the deuce are they in such a hurry to marry me for? Clive's companion remarked, that marriage was a laudable institution and an honest attachment and excellent conservator of youthful morals, on which Clive replied, why don't you marry yourself? This, it was, justly suggested, was no argument, but a merely personal allusion foreign to the question, which was that marriage was laudable, etc. Mr. Clive laughed. Rosie is as good a little creature as can be, he said. She is never out of temper, though I fancy Mrs. Mackenzie tries her. I don't think she is very wise, but she is uncommonly pretty.
And her beauty grows on you. As for Ethel, anything so high and mighty I have never seen since I saw the French giantess. Going to court, and about to parties every night, where a parcel of young fools flatter her, has perfectly spoiled her. By Jove, how handsome she is! How she turns with her long neck, and looks at you from under those black eyebrows. If I painted her hair, I think I should paint it almost blue, and then glaze over with Lake. It is blue, and how finely her head is joined onto her shoulders, and he waves in the air an imaginary line with his cigar. She would do for Judith, wouldn't she? Or how grand she would look as Heredia's daughter, sweeping down a stair, in a great dress.
Of cloth of gold like Paul Veronese, holding a charger before her with white arms, you know, with the muscles accented like that glorious Diana at Paris, a savage smile on her face, and a ghastly, solemn, gory head on the dish. I see the picture, sir. I see the picture. And he fell to curling his mustachios just like his brave old father. I could not help laughing at the resemblance and mentioning it to my friend. He broke, as was his wont, into a fond eulogium of his sire, wished he could be like him, worked himself up into another state of excitement, in which he averred that if his father wanted him to marry, he would marry that instant. And why not, Rosie? She is a dear little thing. Oh, why not that splendid Miss Sherrick?
What a head! A regulatician! I was looking at the difference of their color at Uncle Honeyman's that day of the Désgenier. The shadows in Rosie's face, sir, are all pearly tinted. You ought to paint her in milk, sir, cries the enthusiast. Have you ever remarked the gray round her eyes and the soared up purple bloom of her cheek? Rubens could have done the color. But I don't somehow like to think of a young lady and that sensuous old Peter Paul in company. I look at her like a little wildflower in a field, like a little child at play, sir. Pretty little tender nursling. If I see her passing in the street, I feel as if I would like some fellow to be rude to her, that I might have the pleasure of knocking him down.
She is like a little songbird, sir. A tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into your hand. Pavedam quaterum matram. And smooth its little plumes, and let it perch on your finger and sing. The sherrick creates quite a different sentiment. The sherrick is splendid, stately, sleepy. Stupid, hints Clive's companion. Stupid? Why not? Some women ought to be stupid. What you call dullness, I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a slow woman, a lazy, majestic woman. Show me a gracious virgin bearing a lily, not a leering giggler frisking a rattle. A lively woman would be the death of me. Look at Mrs. Mack, perpetually nodding, winking, grinning, throwing out signals which you are to be at the trouble to answer.
I thought her delightful for three days. I declare I was in love with her. That is, as much as I can be after. But never mind that. I feel I shall never be really in love again. Why shouldn't the sheriff be stupid, I say? About great beauty, there should always reign a silence. As you look at the great stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature, you hush, sir. You laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a temple. When I saw the great penis of the Louvre, I thought, Weren't thou alive, O goddess? Thou shouldst never open those lovely lips, but to speak lowly, slowly. Thou shouldst never descend from that pedestal, but to walk stately to some near couch and assume another attitude of beautiful calm.
To be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well, who shall demand more from her? You don't want a rose to sing, and I think wit is out of place with this great beauty, as I wouldn't have a queen to cut jokes on her throne. I say, Pendennis, here broke off the enthusiastic youth. Have you got another cigar? Shall we go into Finches and have a game at Billiards? Just one. It's quite early yet. Or shall we go in the haunt? It's Wednesday night, you know, when all the boys go. We tap at a door in Old, Old Street in Soho. An old maid with a kind, comical face opens the door and nods friendly and says, How do, sir? Ain't seen you this ever so long. How do, Mr. Newcomb? Who's here? Most everybody's here.
We pass by a little snug bar, in which a trim, elderly lady is seated by a great fire, on which boils an enormous kettle, while two gentlemen are attacking a cold saddle of mutton and West India pickles. Hard by Mr. Snokes, the landlady's elbow, with mutual bows, we recognize Hickson, the sculptor, and Morgan, the intrepid Irish chieftain. Chief of the reporters of the morning press newspaper, we pass through a passage into a back room and are received with a roar of welcome from a crowd of men, almost invisible in the smoke. I am right glad to see thee, boy, cries a cheery voice. That will never troll a chorus more. We spake anon of thy misfortune, gentle youth, and that thy warriors of assay had charged the academy in vain.
Mayhap thou frightenest the courtly school with barbarous visages of grisly war. Pendennis, thou dost wear a thirsty look, resplendent swell, untwine thy choker white. And I will either stand a glass of grog, or thou shalt pay the like for me, my lad, and tell us of the fashionable world. Thus spake the brave old Tom Sargent, also one of the press, one of the old boys, a good old scholar with a good old library of books, who had taken his seat any time these forty years by the chimney fire in this old haunt. Where painters, sculptors, men of letters, actors used to congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough, kindly communion, and many a day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy street ere they parted, and Betsy put the useless lamp out and closed the hospitable gates of the haunt.
The time is not very long since, though today is so changed. As we think of it, The kind familiar faces rise up, and we hear the pleasant voices and singing. There are they met, the honest, hearty companions. In the days when the haunt was a haunt, stagecoaches were not quite over. Casinos were not yet invented. Clubs were rather rare luxuries. There were sanded floors, triangular sawdust boxes, pipes, and tavern parlors. Young Smith and Brown from the temple did not go from chambers to dine at the Polyanthus or the Megatherium off pottage a la bisque, turbo or gratin, colletets a la what-do-you-call'em, and a pint of St. Emelian, but ordered their beefsteak and a pint of port from the plump head waiter at the clock.
Did not disdain the pit of the theater, and for a supper a homely refection at the tavern. How delightful are the suppers in Charles Lamb to read of even now. The cards, the punch, the candles to be snuffed, the social oysters, the modest cheer. Whoever snuffs a candle now? What man has a domestic supper whose dinner hour is eight o'clock? Those little meetings, in the memory of many of us yet, are gone quite a way into the past. Five and twenty years ago is a hundred years off. So much has our social life changed in those five lustres. James Boswell himself, were he to revisit London, would scarce venture to enter a tavern. He would find scarce a respectable companion to enter its doors with him.
It is an institution as extinct as a hackney coach. Many a grown man who peruses this historic page has never seen such a vehicle, and only heard of Rum Punch as a drink which his ancestors used to tipple. Cheerio Tom Sargent is surrounded at the haunt by a dozen of kind, wound companions. They toil all day at their avocations of art, or letters, or law, And here meet for a harmless night's recreation in Converse. They talk of literature or politics or pictures or plays. Socially banter one another over their cheap cups. Sing brave songs sometimes when they are especially jolly, kindly ballads in praise of love and wine. Famous maritime ditties in honor of old England. I fancy I hear Jack Brent's noble voice rolling out the sad, generous refrain of the deserter.
Then, for that reason and for a season, we will be merry before we go. Or Michael Percy's clear tenor, caroling the Irish chorus of, What's that to anyone, whether or no? Or Mark Wilder, shouting his bottle song of, Gary Owen, not Gloria. These songs were regarded with affection by the brave old frequenters of the haunt. A gentleman's property in a song was considered sacred. It was respectfully asked for. It was heard with the more pleasure for being old. Honest Tom Sargent, How the times have changed since we saw thee. I believe the present chief of the reporters of the newspaper, which responsible office Tom filled, goes to Parliament in his Brogham and dines with the ministers of the Crown.
Around Tom are seated grave royal accommodations, rising gay associates, writers of other journals besides the Pell-Mell Gazette, a barrister, maybe, whose name will be famous someday. A hewer of marble, perhaps, a surgeon whose patients have not yet, and one or two men about town who like this queer assembly better than haunts much more splendid. Captain Shannon has been here, and his jokes are preserved in the tradition of the place. Owlet, the philosopher, came once and tried, as his wont is, to lecture, but his metaphysics were beaten down by a storm of banter. Slatter, who gave himself such ears because he wrote in the review, tried to air himself at the haunt, but was choked by the smoke and silenced by the unanimous foo-pooing of the assembly.
Dick Walker, Who rebels secretly at Sargent's authority, once thought to give himself consequence by bringing a young lord from the Blue Posts. But he was so unmercifully chaffed by Tom that even the young lord laughed at him. His lordship has been heard to say that he had been taken to a monstrous queer place. Queer, said our folks, in a tap somewhere, though he went away quite delighted with Tom's affability. But he never came again. He could not find the place, probably. You might pass the haunt in the daytime and not know it in the least. I believe," said Charlie Ormond. A-R-A, he was then. I believe in the day there's no such place at all. And when Betsy turns the glass off at the door lamp as we go away, the whole thing vanishes.
The door, the house, the bar, the haunt. Betsy. The Beer Boy, Mrs. Noakes, and all. It has vanished. It is to be found no more, neither by night nor by day, unless the ghosts of Goodfellas still haunt it. As the genial talk in Glasgow round, And after Clive and his friend have modestly answered the various queries put to them by good old Tom Sargent, the acknowledged praises of the assembly and sacrum of this venerable wigwam, the door opens and another well-known figure is recognized with shouts as it emerges through the smoke. Bam! All hail, says Tom. Frederick, I am right glad to see thee. Bayham says he is disturbed in spirit, and calls for a pint of beer to console him. Hast thou flown far, thou restless bird of night," asked Father Tom, who loves speaking in blank verses.
I have come from Cursedest Street, says Bayham, in a low groan. I have just been to see a poor devil in Quad there. Is that you, Pendennis? You know the man, Charles Honeyman. What? cries Clive, starting up. "'Oh, my prophetic soul, my uncle,' growls Baham, "'I did not see the young one, but tis true.'" The reader is aware that more than the three years have elapsed, of which time the preceding pages contain the harmless chronicle, and while Thomas Newcomb's leave has been running out, and Clive's mustachio's growing. The fate of other persons connected with our story has also had its development, and their fortune has experienced its natural progress, its increase or decay. Our tale, such as it has hitherto been arranged, has passed leisurely in scenes wherein the present tense is for force adopted.
The writer acting his chorus to the drama. And occasionally explaining, by hints or more open statements, what has occurred during the intervals of the acts, and how it happens that the performers are in such or such a posture. In the modern theatre, as the play-going critic knows, the explanatory personage is usually of quite a third-rate order. He is the two walking gentleman friends of Sir Harry Courtley, who welcomed the young baronet to London. and discourse about the niggardliness of Harry's old uncle, the nabob, and the depth of Courtley's passion for Lady Annabelle, the premier amorous. He is the confidant in white linen to the heroine in white satin. He is, Tom, you rascal, the valet or tiger, more or less impudent and acute.
That well-known menial in top boots and a livery frog, with red cuffs and collar, whom Sir Harry always retains in his service. Addresses with scurrilous familiarity, and pays so irregularly. Or he is Lucchetta, Lady Annabelle's waiting maid, who carries the billet-dew and peeps into them. Knows all about the family affairs, pops the lover under the sofa, and sings a comic song between the scenes. Our business now is to enter into Charles Honeyman's privacy, to peer into the secrets of that reverend gentleman, and to tell what has happened to him during the past months, in which he has made fitful, though graceful, appearances on our scene. While his nephew's whiskers have been budding, And his brother-in-law has been spending his money and leave.
Mr. Honeyman's hopes have been withering, his sermons growing stale, his once-blooming popularity drooping and running to seed. Many causes have contributed to bring him to his present melancholy street. When you go to Lady Whittlesey's chapel now, it is by no means crowded. Gaps are in the pews. There is not the least difficulty in getting a snug place near the pulpit. Once the preacher can look over his pocket-handkerchief and see Lord Dosley no more. His lordship has long gone to sleep elsewhere, and a host of the fashionable faithful have migrated too. The incumbent can no more cast his fine eyes upon the French bonnets of the female aristocracy. And see some of the loveliest faces in Mayfair regarding him with expressions of admiration.
Actual dowdy tradesmen of the neighborhood are seated with their families in the aisles. Ridley and his wife and son have one of the very best seats. To be sure, Ridley looks like a nobleman, with his large waistcoat, bald head, and gilt book. J.J. has a fine head, but Mrs. Ridley. Cook and Housekeeper is written on her round face. The music is by no means of its former good quality. That rebellious and ill-conditioned Bozo Ballou has succeeded and seduced the four best singing boys, who now perform glies at the Cave of Harmony. Honeyman has a right to speak of persecution and to compare himself to a hermit insofar that he preaches in a desert. Once, like another hermit, St. Hermione, he used to be visited by lions.
None such come to him now. Such lions as frequent the clergy are gone off to lick the feet of other ecclesiastics. They are weary of poor Honeyman's old sermons. Rivals have sprung up in the course of these three years, have sprung up round about Honeyman, and carried his flock into their folds. We know how such simple animals will leap one after another, and that it is the sheepest way. Perhaps a new pastor has come to the Church of St. Jacob's Yard by. Bold, resolute, bright, clear, a scholar and no pedant. His manly voice is thrilling in their ears. He speaks of life and conduct, of practice as well as faith. And crowds of the most polite and most intelligent and best-informed and best-dressed and most selfish people in the world come and hear him twice at least.
There are so many well-informed and well-dressed, etc., etc., people in the world, that this succession of them keeps St. Jacob's full for a year or more. Then it may be a bawling quack, who has neither knowledge nor scholarship nor charity, but who frightens the public with denunciations and rouses them with the energy of his wrath, succeeds in bringing them together for a while, till they tire of his din and curses. Meanwhile, the good, quiet old churches round about ring their accustomed bell. Opened their Sabbath gates, received their tranquil congregations and sober priest, who has been busy all week, at schools and sickbeds, with watchful teaching, gentle counsel, and silent alms. Though he sought a honeymoon but seldom, for his company was not altogether amusing, and his affectation, when one became acquainted with it, fairly tiresome to witness.
Fred Bayham from his garret at Mrs. Ridley's kept constant watch over the curate and told us of his proceedings from time to time. When we heard the melancholy news first announced, of course the intelligence stamped the gaiety of Clive and his companion, and F.B. conducted all the affairs of life with great gravity, telling Tom Sargent that he had news of importance for our private ear. Tom, with still more gravity than F.B.'s, said, Go, my children. You had best discuss this topic in a separate room, apart from the din and fun of a convivial assembly. And ringing the bell, he bade Betsy bring him another glass of rum and water, and one for Mr. Desborough to be charged to him. We adjourned to another parlor then, where gas was lighted up, and F.P.
over a pint of beer narrated poor Honeyman's mishap. Saving your presence, Clive, said Bayham, and with every regard for the youthful bloom of your young heart's affections, your uncle Charles Honeyman, sir, is a bad lot. I have known him these twenty years, when I was at his father's as a private tutor. Old Miss Honeyman is one of those cards which we call Trumps. So was Old Honeyman a Trump. But Charles and his sister. I stamped on F.B.'s foot under the table. He seemed to have forgotten that he was about to speak of Clive's mother. Hmm. Of your poor mother, I, hmm, I may say V.D. Tantum. I scarcely knew her. She married very young, as I was when she left But Charles exhibited his character at a very early age, and it was not a charming one.
No, by no means, a model of virtue. He always had a genius for running into debt. He borrowed from every one of the pupils. I don't know how he spent it except in Hardbake and Allie Compain, and even from old Norsey's Groom. Pardon me, we used to call your grandfather by that playful epithet, boys will be boys, you know. Even from the doctor's groom he took money, and I recollect thrashing Charles Honeyman for that disgraceful action. At college, without any particular show, he was always in debt and difficulties. Take warning by him, dear youth. By him and by me, if you like. See me. Me, F. Bayham, descended from the ancient kings that long the Tuscan scepter swayed, dodged down a street to get out of sight of a boot shop, and my colossal frame trembled if a chap puts his hand on my shoulder, as you did, Pendennis, the other day in the Strand, when I thought a straw might have knocked me down.
I have had my errors, Clive. I know them. I'll take another pint of beer, if you please. Betsy, has Mrs. Noakes any cold meat in the bar? And an accustomed pickle? Ha! Give her my compliments and say F.B. is hungry. I resume my tale. False F.B. has and knows it. Humbug he may have been sometimes, but I'm not such a complete humbug as Honeyman. Clive did not know how to look at this character of his relative, but Clive's companion burst into a fit of laughter, at which F.B. nodded gravely, and resumed his narrative. I don't know how much money he has had from your governor, but this I can say. The half of it would make F.B. a happy man. I don't know out of how much the Reverend Party has noddled his poor old sister at Brighton.
He has mortgaged his chapel to Sherrick, I suppose you know, who is master of it, and can turn him out any day. I don't think Sherrick is a bad fellow. I think he's a good fellow. I have known him do many a good turn to a chap in misfortune. He wants to get into society, but more natural. That was why you were asked to meet him the other day, and why he asked you to dinner. I hope you had a good one. I wish he'd ask me. Then Moss has got his bills, and Moss's brother-in-law in Cursitous Street has taken possession of his revered person. He's very welcome. One Jew has the chapel. Another Hebrew has the clergyman. It's singular, ain't it? Sherrick might turn Lady Whittlesey into a synagogue and have the chief rabbi into the pulpit, where my uncle, the bishop, has given out the text.
The shears of that concern ain't at a premium. I have had immense fun with Sherrick about it. I like the Hebrew, sir. He maddens with rage when F.B. goes and asks him whether any more pews are let overhead. Honeyman begged and borrowed in order to buy out the last man. I remember when the speculation was famous, when all the boxes, I mean the fuse, were taken for the season, and he couldn't get a place come ever so early. Then Honeyman was spoiled and gave his sermons over and over again. People got sick of seeing the old humbug cry, the old crocodile. Then we tried the musical dodge. F.B. came forward, sir, there. That was a coup. I did it, sir. Ballou wouldn't have sung for any man but me. And for two and twenty months, I kept him as sober as Father Matthew.
Then Honeyman didn't pay him. There was a row in the sacred building, and Ballou retired. Then Sherrick must meddle in it, and having heard a chap out Hempstead Way, who Sherrick thought would do, Honeyman was forced to engage him, regardless of expense. You recollect the fellow, sir? The Reverend Simon Ralkins, the lowest of the low church, sir. A red-haired dumpy man, who gasped at his H's and spoke with a Lancashire twang. He'd no more do for Mayfair than Grimaldi for Macbeth. He and Honeyman used to fight like cat and dog in the vestry, and he drove away a third of the congregation. He was an honest man and an able man, too, though not a sound churchman. F.P. said this with a very edifying gravity.
I told Sherrick this the very day I heard him, and if he had spoken to me on the subject, I might have saved him a pretty penny. A precious deal more than the paltry sum which he and I had a quarrel about at that time. A matter of business, sir. A pecuniary difference about a small three months' thing which caused a temporary estrangement between us. As for Honeyman, he used to cry about it. Your uncle is greater than the Lachrymatory line, Clive Newcomb. He used to go with tears in his eyes to Sherrick and implore him not to have Ralkins. But he would. And I must say for poor Charles that the failure of Lady Whittlesea's has not been altogether Charles's fault, and that Cherrick has kicked down that property.
Well then, sir, poor Charles thought to make it all right by marrying Mrs. Brumby, and she was very fond of him, and the thing was all but done in spite of her sons, who were in a rage as you may fancy. But Charlie, sir, He had such a propensity for humbug that he would tell lies when there is no earthly good in lying. He represented his chapel at twelve hundred a year, his private means as so-and-so, and when he came to book up with Biggs the lawyer, Mrs. Brumby's brother, it was found that he lied and prefaricated so, that the widow in actual disgust would have nothing more to do with him. She was a good woman of business. And managed the hat shop for nine years, whilst poor Brumby was at Dr.
Tokley's. A first-rate shop it was, too. I introduced Charles to it. My uncle, the bishop, had his shovels there, and they used for a considerable period to cover this humble roof with tiles, said F.B., tapping his capacious forehead. I'm sure he might have had Brumby, he added, in his melancholy tones, but for those unlucky lives. She didn't want money. She had plenty. She longed to get into society, and was bent on marrying a gentleman. But what I can't pardon in Honeymoon is the way in which he has done poor old Ridley and his wife. I took him there, you know, thinking they would send their bills in once a month, that he was doing a good business. In fact, that I had put him into a good thing, and the fellow has told me a score of times that he and the Ridleys were all right.
But he has not only not paid his lodgings, but he has had money of them. He has given dinners. He has made Ridley pay for wine. He has kept paying lodgers out of the house, and he tells me all this with a burst of tears when he sent for me to Lazarus's tonight, and I went to him, sir, because he was in distress. Went into the lion's den, sir, says F.B., looking round nobly. I don't know how much he owes them, because, of course, you know the sum he mentions ain't the right one. He never does tell the truth, does Charles. But think of the pluck of those good Ridleys, never saying a single word to F.B. about the debt. We are poor, but we have saved some money and can lie out of it, and we think Mr.
Honeyman will pay us," says Mrs. Ridley to me this very evening. And she thrilled my heart-string, sir, and I took her in my arms and kissed the old woman, says Bayham, and I rather astonished Little Miss Cannes. and young J.J., who came in with the picture under his arm. But she said she had kissed Master Frederick long before J.J. was born, and so she had. That good and faithful servant, and my emotion in embracing her, was manly, sir, manly. Here old Betsy came in to say that the supper was a-waiting for Mr. Bam, and it was a-getting very late. And we left F. B. to his meal, and bidding adieu to Mrs. Noakes, Clive and I went each to our habitation.
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26 26 - Chapter 26: In which Colonel Newcome's Horses are sold 31:58
The Newcombs, by William May Peace Thackeray. Chapter XXVI. In which Colonel Newcomb's horses are sold. At an hour early the next morning, I was not surprised to see Colonel Newcomb at my chambers, to whom Clive had communicated Bayham's important news of the night before. The Colonel's object, as anyone who knew him need scarcely be told, was to rescue his brother-in-law. And being ignorant of lawyers, sheriff's officers, and their proceedings, he bethought him that he would apply to Lamb Court for information, and insofar showed some prudence, for at least I knew more of the world and its ways than my simple client, and was enabled to make better terms for the unfortunate prisoner, or rather for Colonel Newcomb, who was the real sufferer.
than Honeyman's creditors might otherwise have been disposed to give. I thought it would be more prudent that our good Samaritan should not see the victim of rogues whom he was about to succor, and left him to entertain himself with Mr. Warrington in Lamb Court, while I sped to the lock-up house, where the Mayfair pet was confined. A sickly smile played over his countenance as he beheld me when I was ushered to his private room. The reverend gentleman was not shaved. He had partaken of breakfast. I saw a glass which had once contained brandy on the dirty tray whereon his meal was placed. A greasy novel from a Chancery Lane library lay on the table. But he was at present occupied in writing one or more those great long letters, those laborious, ornate, eloquent statements, those documents so profusely underlined, in which the machinations of villains are laid bare with italic fervor.
The coldness, to use no harsher phrase, Of friends on whom reliance might have been placed. The outrageous conduct of Sullivan's. The astonishing failure of Smith to pay a sum of money on which he had counted as on the Bank of England. Finally, the infallible certainty of repaying, with what heartfelt thanks need not be said, the loan of so many pounds next Saturday week at farthest. All this, which some readers in the course of their experience have read no doubt in many handwritings, was duly set forth by poor Honeyman. There was a wafer in a wineglass on the table, and the bearer no doubt below to carry the missive. They always sent these letters by a messenger, who is introduced in the postscript.
He is always sitting in the hall when you get the letter. And is a young man waiting for an answer, please? No one can suppose that Honeyman laid a complete statement of his affairs before the negotiator who was charged to look into them. No debtor does confess all his debts, but breaks them gradually to his man of business, factor or benefactor. Leading him on from surprise to surprise, and when he was in possession of the tailor's little account, introducing him to the bootmaker. Honeyman's schedule, I felt perfectly certain, was not correct. The detainees against him were trifling. Moss of Water Street, 120. I believe I have paid him thousands in this very transaction, ejaculates Honeyman.
A heartless West End tradesman, hearing of my misfortune. All these people are linked together, my dear Pendennis, and rushed like vultures upon their prey. Waterlove, the tailor, has another writ out for 98 pounds, a man whom I have made by my recommendations. Taubins, the bootmaker, his neighbor in German Street, 41 pounds more, and that is all. I give you my word all. In a few months, when my pew rents will be coming in, I should have settled with those cormorants. Otherwise, my total and irretievable ruin and the disgrace and humiliation of a prison attends me. I know it. I can bear it. I have been wretchedly weak, Pendennis. I can say mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, and I can bear my Penalty.
In his finest moments he was never more pathetic. He turned his head away and concealed it in a handkerchief not so white as those which veiled his emotions at Lady Whittlesey's. How by degrees this slippery penitent was induced to make other confessions. How we got an idea of Mrs. Ridley's account from him, of his dealings with Mr. Sherrick, need not be mentioned here. The conclusion to which Colonel Newcomb's ambassador came was that to help such a man would be quite useless, and that the Fleet Prison would be a most wholesome retreat for this most reckless divine. Ere the day was out, Mrs. Waterlove and Tawbins had conferred with their neighbor in St. James, Mr. Brace. And there came a detainer from that haberdasher for gloves, cravats, and pocket-handkerchiefs, that might have done credit to the most dandified young guardsman.
Mr. Warrington was on Mr. Pendennis's side, and urged that the law should take its course. "'Why help a man,' said he, "'who will not help himself? Let the law sponge out the fellow's debts.' Set him going again with twenty pounds when he quits the prison, and get him a chaplaincy in the Isle of Man. I saw by the Colonel's grave kind face that these hard opinions did not suit him. At all events, sir, promise us, we said, that you will pay nothing yourself, that you won't see Uniman's creditors, and let people, who know the world better, deal with him. "'Know the world, young man,' cries Newcomb. "'I should think if I don't know the world at my age, I never shall.' "'And if he had lived to be as old as Jehalil, a boy could still have cheated him.' "'I do not scruple to tell you,' he said, after a pause during which a plenty of smoke was delivered from the Council of Three, that I have a fund which I had set aside for mere purposes of pleasure.
I give you my word, and a part of which I shall think it my duty to devote to poor Honeyman's distresses. The fund is not large. The money was intended, in fact. However, there it is. If Pendennis will go round to these tradesmen and make some composition with them, as their prices have been, no doubt, enormously exaggerated, I see no harm. Besides the tradesfolk, there is good Mrs. Ridley and Mr. Sherrick. We must see them, and if we can, set this luckless Charles again on his legs. We have read of other prodigals who were kindly treated, and we have debts of our own to forgive boys. Into Mr. Sherrick's account we had no need to enter. That gentleman had acted with perfect fairness by Honeyman.
He laughingly said to us, you don't imagine I would lend that chap a shilling without security. I will give him fifty or a hundred. Here's one of his notes, with, what do you call them's, that rum fellow Bayham's name as drawer. A nice pair, ain't they? Poo! I shall never touch em. I lent some money on the shop overhead," says Sherrick, pointing to the ceiling. We were in his counting house in the cellar of Lady Whittlesey's chapel, because I thought it was a good speculation, and so it was at first. The people liked Honeyman. All the knobs came to hear him. Now the speculation ain't so good. He's used up. A chap can't be expected to last forever. When I first engaged Mademoiselle Brevora at my theater, you couldn't get a place for three weeks together.
The next year, she didn't draw 20 pounds a week. So it was with Pottle and the regular drama Humbug. At first, it was all very well. Good business, good houses, our immortal bard, and that sort of game. They engaged the tigers and the French riding people over the way. And there was Pottle, bellowing away in my place to the orchestra and the orders. It's all a speculation. I've speculated on about pretty much everything that's going. In theaters, in joint stock jobs, in building ground, in bills, in gas and insurance companies, and in this chapel. Poor old Honeyman. I won't hurt him. About that other chap I put in to do the first business, that red-haired chap, Ralkins, I think I was wrong. I think he injured the property.
But I don't know everything you know. I wasn't bred to know about Parsons, quite the reverse. I thought when I heard Rockins at Hampstead, he was just the thing. I used to go about, sir, just as I did to the provinces when I had the theatre. Camberwell, Islington, Kennington, Clapton, all about, and here the young chaps. Have a glass of sherry, and here's better luck to Honeyman." As for that colonel, he's a trump, sir. I never see such a man. I have to deal with such a precious lot of rogues in the city and out of it, among the swells and all, you know. And to see such a fellow refreshes me, and I'd do anything for him. You've made a good thing of that Pell-Mell Gazette. I tried papers, too, but mine didn't do.
I don't know why. I tried a Tory one. Moderate liberal, and out-and-out uncompromising radical. I say, what do you think of a religious paper? The catechism of some such name. Would Honeyman do as editor? I'm afraid it's all up with the poor cove at the chapel. And I parted with Mr. Sherrick, not a little edified by his talk, and greatly relieved as to Honeyman's fate. The tradesmen of Honeyman's body were appeased, and as for Mr. Moss, when he found that the curate had no effects and must go before the insolvent court, unless Moss chose to take the composition which we were empowered to offer him, he too was brought to hear reason, and parted with the stamped paper on which was poor Honeyman's signature.
Our negotiation had like to have come to an end by Clive's untimely indignation, who offered at one stage of the proceedings to pitch young Moss out of a window. But nothing came of this most on gentlemanlike behavior on Newcomb's part, further than remonstrance and delay in the proceedings. And Honeyman preached a lovely sermon at Lady Whittlesey's the very next Sunday. He had made himself much liked in the sponging house, and Mr. Lazarus said, if he hadn't got out time enough, I'd have let him out for Sunday, and sent one of my men with him to show him the way home, you know. For when a gentleman behaves as a gentleman to me, I behave as a gentleman to him. Mrs. Ridley's account, and it was a long one, was paid without a single question, or the deduction of a farthing.
But the Colonel rather sickened of Honeyman's expressions of rapturous gratitude, and received his professions of mingled contrition and delight very coolly. My boy, says the father to Clive, you see to what straight's debt brings a man, to tamper with truth to have to cheat the poor. Think of flying before a washerwoman, or humbling yourself to a tailor, or eating a poor man's children's bread. Clive blushed, I thought, and looked rather confused. Oh, father, says he, I'm afraid I owe some money, too. Not much, but about forty pounds, five and twenty for cigars, and fifteen I borrowed of Pendennis, and I've been devilish annoyed about it all this time. You stupid boy, says the father. I knew about the cigars bill, and paid it last week.
Anything I have is yours, you know. As long as there is a guinea, there is half for you. See that every shelling we owe is paid before, before a week is over, and go down and ask Benny if I can see him in his study. I want to have some conversation with him." When Clive was gone away, he said to me in a very sweet voice, In God's name, keep my boy out of debt when I am gone, Arthur. I shall return to India very soon." "'Very soon, sir. You have another year's leave,' said I. "'Yes, but no allowances, you know, and this affair of honeyman's has pretty nearly emptied the little purse I had set aside for European expenses. They have been very much heavier than I expected. As it is, I overdrew my account at my brother's and have been obliged to draw money from my agents in Calcutta.'" A year sooner or later, unless two of our senior officers had died, when I should have got my promotion and full Colonel's pay with it, and proposed to remain in this country.
A year sooner or later, what does it matter? Clive will go away and work at his art, and see the great schools of painting while I am absent. I thought at one time how pleasant it would be to accompany him. But long proposed, Pendenis, I fancy now a lad is not the better for being always tied to his parents' apron string. You young fellows are too clever for me. I haven't learned your ideas or read your books. I feel myself very often an old damper in your company. I will go back, sir, where I have some friends, where I am somebody still. I know an honest face or two, white and brown, that will lighten up in the old regiment when they see Tom Newcomb again. God bless you, Arthur. You young fellows in this country have such cold ways that we old ones hardly know how to like you at first.
James, Binney, and I, when we first came home, used to talk you over and think you laughed at us. But you didn't, I know. God Almighty bless you. And send you a good wife, and make a good man of you. I have bought a watch which I would like you to wear in remembrance of me and my boy, to whom you were so kind when you were boys together in the old Greyfriars. I took his hand and uttered some incoherent words of affection and respect. Did not Thomas Newcomb merit both from all who knew him? His resolution being taken, our good Colonel began to make silent but effectual preparations for his coming departure. He was pleased during these last days of his stay to give me even more of his confidence than I had previously enjoyed, and was kind enough to say that he regarded me almost as a son of his own, and hoped I would act as elder brother and guardian to Clive.
Ah, who is to guard the guardian? The younger brother had many nobler qualities than belonged to the elder. The world had not hardened Clive, nor even succeeded in spoiling him. I perceive I am diverging from his history into that of another person, and will return to the subject proper of the book. Colonel Newcomb expressed himself as being particularly touched and pleased with his friend Benny's conduct. Now that the Colonel's departure was determined, James is one of the most generous of men, Ben Dennis, and I am proud to be put under an obligation to him, and to tell it, too. I hired this house, as you are aware, of our speculative friend, Mr. Sherrick, and am answerable for the payment of the rent to the expiry of the lease.
James has taken the matter off my hands entirely. The place is greatly too large for him, but he says that he likes it and intends to stay, and that his sister and niece shall be his housekeepers. Clive, here perhaps the speaker's voice drops a little, Clive will be the son of the house still, honest James says, and God bless him. James is richer than I thought by, near a lack of rupees, and here is a hint for you, Master Arthur. Mr. Benny has declared to me in confidence that if his niece, Miss Rosie, shall marry a person of whom he approves, he will leave her a considerable part of his fortune. The colonel's confidant here said that his own arrangements were made in another quarter, to which statement the colonel replied knowingly, I thought so.
A little bird has whispered to me the name of a certain Miss A. I knew her grandfather, an accommodating old gentleman, and I borrowed some money from him when I was a subaltern at Calcutta. I tell you in strict confidence, my dear young friend, that I hope and trust a certain young gentleman of your acquaintance may be induced to think how good and pretty and sweet-tempered girl Miss Mackenzie is, and that she may be brought to like him. If you young men would marry in good time, good and virtuous women, as I am sure, ahem, Miss Amory is, half the temptations of your youth would be avoided. You would neither be dissolute, as many of you seem to me, or cold and selfish, with your worst vices still.
And my prayer is, That my Clive may cast anchor early out of the reach of temptation, and mate with some such kind girl as Benny's niece. When I first came home, I formed other plans for him, which could not be brought to a successful issue. And knowing his ardent disposition, and having kept an eye on the young rogue's conduct, I trembled lest some mischance with a woman should befall him, and longed to have him out of danger. So the kind scheme of the two elders was that their young ones should marry and be happy ever after, like the prince and princess of the fairy tale. And dear Mrs. Mackenzie, have I said that at the commencement of her visit to her brother, she made almost open love to the Colonel?
Dear Mrs. Mack was content to forgo her own chances so that her darling Rosie might be happy. We used to laugh and say that as soon as Claus' father was gone, Josie would be sent for to join Rosie. But little Josie, being under her grandmother's sole influence, took most gratifying and serious turn, wrote letters in which he questioned the morality of operas, Towers of London and Waxworks, and before a year was out, married Elder Bogey of Mr. McCraw's Church. Presently was to be read in the Morning Post an advertisement of the sale of three horses, the description and pedigree following, the property of an officer returning to India, applied to the groom at the stables, 150 Fitzroy Square. The Court of Directors invited Lt.
Col. Lucum to an entertainment given to Major General Sir Ralph Spurrier, KCB. Appointed Commander-in-Chief at Madras. Clive was asked to this dinner, too, and the Governor's health was drunk, sir, Clive said, after dinner, and the dear old fellow made such a good speech in returning thanks. He, Clive, and I made a pilgrimage to Greyfriars and had the green to ourselves, it being the Bartley-Maitai vacation and the boys all away. One of the good old poor brothers whom we both recollected accompanied us round the place. And we sat for a while in Captain Scardstale's little room. He had been a Peninsula officer who had sold out and was fain in his old age to retire into this calm retreat. And we talked, as all schoolmates and lovers talk, about subjects interesting to schoolmates and lovers only.
One by one, the Colonel took leave of his friends, young and old, ran down to Newcomb, and gave Mrs. Mason a parting benediction, slept a night at Tom Smith's, and passed a day with Jack Brown, went to all the boys' and girls' schools where his little protégés were, so as to be able to take the very last and most authentic account of the young folks to their parents in India, spent a week at Marble Hill. And shot partridges there, but for which entertainment Clive said the place would have been intolerable, and then proceeded to Brighton to pass a little time with good Miss Honeyman. As for Sir Brian's family, when Parliament broke up, of course, they did not stay in town. Barnes, of course, had part of a moor in Scotland, whither his uncle and cousin did not follow him.
The rest went abroad. Sir Brian wanted the waters of Aix-la-Chapelle. The brothers parted very good friends. Lady Anne and all the young people heartily wished him farewell. I believe Sir Brian even accompanied the colonel downstairs from the drawing room in Park Lane, and actually came out and saw his brother into his cab. Just as he would accompany old lady bags when she came to look at her account at the bank, from the parlor to her carriage. But as for Ethel, she was not going to be put off with this sort of parting, and the next morning a cab dashed up to Fitzroy Square. And a veiled lady came out thence, and was closeted with Colonel Newcomb for five minutes, and when he led her back to the carriage, there were tears in his eyes.
Mrs. McKenzie joked about the transaction, having watched it from the dining room windows, and asked the Colonel who his sweetheart was. Newcomb replied very sternly that he hoped no one would ever speak lightly of that young lady, whom he loved as his own daughter, and I thought Rosie looked vexed at the praise thus bestowed. This was the day before we all went down to Brighton. Miss Honeyman's lodgings were taken for Mr. Binney and his ladies. Clive and her dearest Colonel had apartments next door. Charles Honeyman came down and preached one of his very best sermons. Fred Bayham was there, and looked particularly grand and noble on the pier and the cliff. I am inclined to think he had had some explanation with Thomas Newcomb, which had placed F.B.
in a state of at least temporary prosperity. Whom did he not benefit whom he knew? And what eye that saw him did not bless him. F. B. was greatly affected at Charles's sermon, of which our party, of course, would see the illusions. Tears actually rode down his brown cheeks, for Fred was a man very easily moved, and, as it were, a softened sinner. Little Rosie and her mother sobbed audibly. Greatly to the surprise of stout old Miss Honeyman, who had no idea of such watery exhibitions, and to the discomfiture of poor Newcomb, who was annoyed to have his praises even hinted in that sacred edifice. Good Mr. James Binney came for once to church, and however variously their feelings might be exhibited, or Repressed, I think there was not one of the little circle there assembled who did not bring to the place a humble prayer and a gentle heart.
It was the last Sabbath bell our dear friend was to hear for many a day on his native shore. The great sea washed the beach as we came out, blue with the reflection of the skies and its innumerable waves crested with sunshine. I see the good man and his boy yet clinging to him as they pace together by the shore. The Colonel was very much pleased by a visit from Mr. Ridley and the communication which he made. My lord, Todd Borden, has a mansion and park in Sussex whence Mr. Ridley came to pay his duty to Colonel Newcomb. He said he could never forget the kindness with which the Colonel had a treated him. His Lordship have taken a young man, which Mr. Ridley had brought him up under his own eye, and can answer for him, Mr.
R. says, with impunity, and which he is to be his Lordship's own man for the future. And his Lordship have appointed me his steward, and having, as he always have been, been most liberal in point of salary. And me and Mrs. Ridley was thinking, sir, most respectfully, with regard to our son, Mr. John James Ridley, as good and honest a young man, which I am proud to say it, that if Mr. Clive goes abroad, we should be most proud and happy if John James went with him. And the money which you have paid us, O handsome Colonel, he shall have it, which it was the excellent idea of Miss Cannes." And my lord have ordered a picture of John James in the most liberal manner, and have asked my son to dinner, sir, at his lordship's own table, which I have faithfully served him five and thirty years.
Ridley's voice fairly broke down at this part of his speech, which evidently was a studied composition, and he uttered no more of it. For the Colonel cordially shook him by the hand, and Clive jumped up clapping his, and saying that it was the greatest wish of his heart that J.J. and he should be companions in France and Italy. But I did not like to ask my dear old father, he said, who has had so many calls on his purse, and besides, I knew that J.J. was too independent to come as my follower. The Colonel's birth has been duly secured ere now. This time he makes the overland journey, and his passage is to Alexandria, taken in one of the noble ships of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. His kit is as simple as a subaltern's, I believe, but for Clive's friendly compulsion, he would have carried back no other than the old uniform which has served him for so many years.
Clive and his father traveled to Southampton together by themselves. F.B. and I took the Southampton coach. We had asked leave to see the last of him and say a God bless you to our dear old friend. So the day came when the vessel was to sail. We saw his cabin and witnessed all the bustle and stir on board the good ship on a day of departure. Our thoughts, however, were fixed but on one person. The case, no doubt, with hundreds more on such a day. There was many a group of friends closing wistfully together on the sunny deck, and saying the last words of blessing and farewell. The bustle of the ship passes dimly round about them, the hurrying noise of crew and officers running on their duty. The tramp and song of the men at the capstan bars, the bells ringing as the hour for departure comes nearer and nearer, as mother and son, father and daughter, husband and wife, hold hands yet for a little while.
We saw Clive and his father talking together by the wheel. Then they went below, and a passenger, her husband, asked me to give my arm to an almost fainting lady and to lead her off the ship. Bam followed us, carrying their two children in his arms, as the husband turned away and walked aft. The last bell was ringing, and they were crying, now for the shore. The whole ship had begun to throb ere this, and its great wheels to beat the water, and the chimneys had flung out their black signals for sailing. We were as yet close on the deck, and we saw Clive coming up from below, looking very pale. The plank was drawn after him as he stepped on land. Then, with three great cheers from the dock, and from the crew in the bows, and from the passengers on the quarter-deck, the noble ship strikes the first stroke of her destined race, and swims away towards the ocean.
There he is! There he is! shouts Fred Bayham, waving his hat. God bless him! God bless him! I scarce perceived at the ship's side, Beckoning, Anna Dew, our dear old friend, when the lady, whose husband had bidden me to lead her away from the ship, fainted in my arms. Poor soul! Her, too, has fate stricken. Ah! pangs of heart torn asunder, passionate regrets, cruel, cruel partings.
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27 27 - Chapter 27: Youth and Sunshine 28:38
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 27 Youth and Sunshine Although Thomas Newcomb has gone back to India in search of more money, Finding that he could not live upon his income at home, he was nevertheless rather a wealthy man, and at the moment of his departure from Europe, had two lakhs of rupees invested in various Indian securities. A thousand a year, he thought. More, added to the interest accruing for my two lakhs, will enable us to live very comfortably at home. I can give Clive ten thousand pounds when he marries. And 500 a year out of my allowances. If he gets a wife with some money, they may have every enjoyment of life. And as for his pictures, he can paint just as few or as many of those as he pleases.
Newcomb did not seem seriously to believe that his son would live by painting pictures, but considered Clive as a young prince who chose to amuse himself with painting. The muse of painting is a lady whose social station is not altogether recognized with us as yet. The polite world permits a gentleman to amuse himself with her, but to take her for better or for worse, forsake all other chances, and cleave unto her, to assume her name. Many a respectable person would be as much shocked at the notion as if his son had married an opera dancer. Newcomb left a hundred a year in England, of which the principal sum was to be transferred to his boy as soon as he came of age. He endowed Clive further with a considerable annual sum, which his London bankers would pay.
And if these are not enough, says he kindly, you must draw upon my agents, Messrs. Frank and Merriweather at Calcutta, who will receive your signature just as if it was mine. Before going away, he introduced Clive to F and M's corresponding London house, Jolly and Bain's Fog Court, leading out of Leidenhall. Mr. Jolly, a myth as regarded the firm, now married to Lady Julia Jolly, a park in Kent, evangelical interest, great at Exeter Hall meetings. New Clive's grandmother, that is, Mrs. Newcomb, a most admirable woman. Baines represents a house in the Regent Park with an emigrative tendency towards Belgravia. Musical daughters, Irmoshells, Benedict, Ella, Osborne constantly at dinner sonatas in P-flat, op 936.
Composed and dedicated to Miss Euphemia Baines, by her most obliged, most obedient servant, Ferdinando Blitz. Baines hopes that his young friend will come constantly to York Terrace, where the most girls will be happy to see him, and mentions at home a singular whim of Colonel Newcombs, who can give his son twelve of fifteen hundred a year, and makes an artist of him. Euphemia and Flora adore artists. They feel quite interested about this young man. He was scribbling characters all the time I was talking with his father in my parlor, says Mr. Baines, and produces a sketch of an orange woman near the bank, who had struck Clive's eyes, and been transferred to the blotting paper in Fog Court. He needn't do anything, said good-natured Mr.
Baines. I guess all the pictures he'll paint won't sell for much. Is he fond of music, Papa, asked Miss. What a pity he had not come to our last evening, and now the season is over. And Mr. Newcomb is going out of town. He came to me today for circular notes, says he's going through Switzerland and into Italy. Lives in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Queer place, ain't it? Put his name down in your book and ask him to dinner next season. Before Clive went away, he had an apparatus of easels, sketching stools, umbrellas, and painting boxes, the most elaborate and beautiful that Messer Soap and Isaac could supply. It made J.J.'s eyes glisten to see those lovely gimcracks of art. Those smooth mill boards, those slab-tinted sketching blocks, and glistening rows of colored tubes lying in their boxes, which seemed to cry, come, squeeze me.
If painting boxes made painters, if sketching stools would but enable one to sketch, surely I would hasten this very instant to Mrs. Soap and Isaac. But alas, these pretty toys no more make artists than cows make monks. As a proof that Clive did intend to practice his profession and to live by it, too, at this time, he took four sporting sketches to a print seller in the haymarket and disposed of them at the rate of seven shillings and sixpence per sketch. His exultation at receiving a sovereign and a half a sovereign from Mr. Jones was boundless. I can do half a dozen of these things easily in the morning, he says. Two guineas a day is twelve guineas. Say ten guineas a week, for I won't work on Sundays, and may take a holiday in a week besides.
Ten guineas a week is five hundred a year. That is pretty nearly as much money as I shall want, and I need not draw the dear old governor's allowance at all. He wrote an ardent letter, full of happiness and affection to the kind father, which he shall find a month after he has arrived in India, and read to his friends in Calcutta and Barakpur. Clive invited many of his artist friends to a grand feast in honor of the thirty shillings. The King's Arms, Kensington, was the hotel selected, tavern beloved of artists for many score years. Gandish was there, and the Gandishites, and some chosen spirits from the Life Academy, Clifstone Street, and J.J. was vice-president with Fred Bannam by his side, to make the speeches and carve the mutton, and I promise you many a merry song was sung, and many a health drunk and flowing bumpers, and as jolly a party was assembled as any London contained that day.
The Beaumont had quitted it. The park was empty as we crossed it, and the leaves of Kensington Garden had begun to fall, dying after the fatigues of a London season. We sang all the way home through Knightsbridge and by the park railings, and the covent garden carters, halting at the halfway house, were astonished at our choruses. There is no halfway house now, no merry chorus at midnight. Then Clive and JJ took the steamboat to Antwerp. And those who love pictures may imagine how the two young men rejoiced in one of the most picturesque cities of the world, where they went back straightway into the sixteenth century, where the inn at which they stayed, delightful old Grand Louvreur, thine ancient walls are leveled, thy comfortable hospitalities exist no more.
Seems such a hostelry as that where Quentin Durwood first saw his sweetheart, where knights of Valesgez or burgomasters of Rubens seemed to look from the windows of the tall gabled houses and the quaint porches, where the Boers still stood. The Boers of three hundred years ago. And you had but to supply figures with beards and ruffs, and rapiers and truncos, to make the picture complete, where, to be awakened by the carillon of the bells, was to waken to the most delightful sense of life and happiness. When nuns, actual nuns, walked the streets, and every figure in the plaster mire, and every devotee at church, kneeling and draped in black, Or entering the confessional. Actually, the confessional was a delightful subject for the new sketchbook.
Had Clive drawn as much everywhere as at Antwerp, Messrs. Soap and Isaac might have made a little income by supplying it with materials. After Antwerp. Clive's correspondent gets a letter dated from the Hotel de Suede at Brussels, which contains an elaborate eulogy of the cookery and comfort of that hotel, where the wines, according to the writer's opinion, are unmatched almost in Europe. And this is followed by a description of Waterloo, and a sketch of Hugermont, in which J.J. is represented running away in the character of a French grenadier, Clive pursuing him in the life-guard habit, and mounted on a thundering charger. Next follows a letter from Bonn. Verses about Drakensfelds, of not very superior style of versification, and a Count of Crichton, an old-gray friar's man, who has become a student at the university, Of a commerce, a drunken bout, and a student's duel at Bonn.
And whom should I find here, says Mr. Clive, but Aunt Anne, Ethel, Miss Quigley, and the little ones, the whole detachment under the command of Kuhn. Uncle Brian is staying at Aix. He is recovered from his attack. And upon my conscience, I think my pretty cousin looks prettier every day. When they are not in London, Clive goes on to write, or I sometimes think when Barnes or Old Lady Q are not looking over them, they are quite different. You know how cold they have latterly seemed to us, and how their conduct annoyed my dear old father. Nothing can be kinder than their behavior since we have met. It was on the little hill at Cotisberg. J.J. and I were mounting to the ruin, followed by the beggars who waylay you.
And I've taken the place of the other robbers who used to live there. When there came a procession of donkeys down the steep, and I heard a little voice cry, Hello! It's Clive! Hooray! Clive! And an ass came pattering down the declivity, with a little pair of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey's back. And behold, there was little Alfred grinning with all his might. He turned his beast and was for galloping up the hill again, I suppose to inform his relations, but the donkey refused with many kicks, one of which sent Alfred plunging among the stones, and we were rubbing him down just as the rest of the party came upon us. Miss Quigley looked very grim on an old white pony.
My aunt was on a black horse that might have turned gray he was so old. Then come two donkeys full of children, with Kuhn as supercargo. Then Ethel on donkey back, too, with a bunch of wildflowers in her hand, a great straw hat with a crimson ribbon, a white muslin jacket, you know, bounded the waist with the ribbon of the first, and a dark skirt with a shawl round her feet which Kuhn had arranged. As she stopped, the donkey fell to cropping greens in the hedge. The trees there checkered her white dress and face with shadow. Her eyes, hair, and forehead were in shadow, too. But the light was all upon her right cheek, upon her shoulder down to her arm, which was of a warmer white, and on the bunch of flowers which she held, blue, yellow, and red poppies, and so forth.
J.J. says, I think the birds began to sing louder when she came. We have both agreed that she is the handsomest woman in England. It's not her form merely, which is certainly as yet too thin and a little angular. It is her color. I do not care for woman or picture without color. O ye carnations, O ye Lilia misterosis. Oh, such black hair and solemn eyebrows. It seems to me the roses and carnations have bloomed again since we saw them last in London, when they were drooping from the exposure to night air, candlelight, and heated ballrooms. Here I was in the midst of a regiment of donkeys, bearing a crowd of relations, J.J. standing modestly in the background, beggars completing the group, and Kuehl Ruling over them with a voice and gesture, oaths and whip, thrown in the Rhine in the distance, flashing by the seven mountains.
But mind, and make Ethel the principal figure. If you make her like, she certainly will be, and other lights will be only minor fires. You may paint her form, but you can't paint her color. That is what beats us in nature. A line must come right. You can force that into its place. But you can't compel the circumambient air. There is no yellow I know of will make sunshine, and no blue that is a bit like sky. And so with pictures. I think you only get signs of color and formulas to stand for it. That brick dust which we agree to receive as representing a blush Look at it. Can you say it is in the least like the blush which flickers and varies as it sweeps over the down of the cheek? As you see sunshine playing over a meadow.
Look into it and see what a variety of delicate blooms there are. A multitude of flowerets twining into one tint. We may break our color pots and strive after the line alone. That is palpable and we can grasp it. The other is impossible and beyond us. Which sentiment I hear set down, not on account of its worth, and I think it is contradicted, as well as asserted, in more than one of the letters I subsequently had from Mr. Clive. But it may serve to show the ardent and impulsive disposition of this youth, by whom all beauties of art and nature, animate or inanimate, the former especially. were welcomed with a gusto and delight whereof colder temperaments are incapable. The view of a fine landscape, a fine picture, a handsome woman, would make this harmless young sensualist tipsy with pleasure.
He seemed to derive at actual hilarity and intoxication, as his eye drank in these sights. And though it was his maxim that all dinners were good, and he could eat bread and cheese and drink small beer with perfect good humor, I believe that he found a certain pleasure in a bottle of claret, which most men's systems were incapable of feeling. This springtime of youth is the season of letter-writing. A lad in high health and spirits, the blood running briskly in his young veins, and the world and life and nature, bright and welcome to him, looks out, perforce, for some companion to whom he may impart his sense of the pleasure which he enjoys, and which will not complete unless a friend were by to share it.
I was the person most convenient for the young fellow's purpose. He was pleased to confer upon me the title of friend on Titre, and confidant in particular, to endow the confidant in question with a number of virtues and excellences which existed very likely only in the lad's imagination. To lament that the confidant had no sister whom he, Clive, might marry out of hand, and to make me a thousand simple protests of affection and admiration, which are noted here as signs of the young man's character, by no means as proofs of the goodness of mine. The books given to the present biographer by his affectionate friend, Clive Newcomb, still bear on the title pages the marks of that boyish hand and youthful fervor.
He had a copy of Walter Lorraine, bound in guilt with such splendor as made the author blush for his performance, which has since been seen at the bookstalls, at a price suited to the very humblest purses. He fired up and fought a newspaper critic, whom Clive met at the haunt one night, who had dared to write an article in which that work was slighted. And if, in the course of nature, his friendship has outlived that rapturous period, the kindness of the two old friends, I hope, is not the less because it is no longer romantic, and the days of white vellum and gilt edges have passed away. From the abundance of the letters which the affectionate young fellow now wrote, the ensuing portion of his youthful history is compiled.
It may serve to recall passages of their early days to such of his seniors as occasionally turn over the leaves of a novel, and in the story of his faults, indiscretions, passions, and actions, young readers may be reminded of their own. Now that the old countess and perhaps Barnes were away, the barrier between Clive and this family seemed to be withdrawn. The young folks who loved him were free to see him as often as he would come. They were going to Baden. Would he come, too? Baden was on the road to Switzerland. He might journey to Strasbourg, Basel, and so on. Clive was glad enough to go with his cousins and travel in the orbit of such a lovely girl as Ethel Newcomb. J.J. performed the second part always when Clive was present, and so they all traveled to Koblenz, Mayence, and Frankfurt together, making the journey which everybody knows and sketching the mountains and castles we all of us have sketched.
Ethel's beauty made all the passengers and all the steamers look round and admire. Clive was proud of being in the suite of such a lovely person. The family traveled with a pair of those carriages which used to thunder along the continental roads a dozen years since, and from interior, box, and rumble discharged a dozen English people at hotel gates. The journey is all sunshine and pleasure and novelty. The circular notes with which Mr. Baines of Fog Court has supplied Clive Newcomb, Esquire. enabled that young gentleman to travel with great ease and comfort. He has not yet ventured upon engaging a valet de chambre. It being agreed between him and J.J., that two traveling artists have no right to such an aristocratic appendage, but he has bought a snug little britska at Frankfurt.
The youth has very polite taste, is already a connoisseur in wine, and has no scruple in ordering the best at the hotels. And the Britska travels in company with Lady Anne's caravan, either in its wake so as to be out of reach of the dust, or more frequently ahead of that enormous vehicle, and its tender, in which come the children and the governess of Lady Anne Newcomb. Guarded by a huge and melancholy London footman, Who beholds Rhine and Neckar, Valley and Mountain, Village and Ruin, with a light, dismal composure. Little Alfred and Little Egbert are by no means sorry to escape from Miss Quigley and the tender, and for a stage ride of two in Clive's Britska. The little girls cry sometimes to be admitted to that privilege.
I dare say Ethel would like very well to quit her place in the caravan, where she sits, circumvented by Mama's dogs and books, bags, dressing boxes, and gimcrack cases, without which apparatus some English ladies of condition cannot travel. But Miss Ethel is grown up. She is out and has been presented at court, and is a person of too great dignity. Now to sit anywhere but in the place of state in the chariot corner. I like to think for my part of the gallant young fellow taking his pleasure in enjoying his holiday. And few sights are more pleasant than to watch a happy, manly English youth. Free-handed and generous-hearted, content and good humor shining in his honest face, pleased and pleasing, eager, active, and thankful for services.
and exercising bravely his noble, youthful privilege to be happy and to enjoy. Sing, cheery spirit, whilst the spring lasts. Bloom, whilst the sun shines, kindly flowers of youth. You shall be none the worse tomorrow for having been happy today, if the day brings no action to shame it. As for J.J., he too had his share of enjoyment. The charming scenes around him did not escape his bright eye. He absorbed pleasure in his silent way. He was up with the sunrise always, and at work with his eyes and his heart, if not with his hands. A beautiful object, too, is such a one to contemplate, a pure virgin soul, a creature gentle, pious, and full of love, endowed with sweet gifts, humble and timid, But for truth's and justice's sake, inflexible.
Thankful to God and man. Fond, patient, and faithful. Clive was still his hero as ever, his patron, his splendid young prince and chieftain, who was so brave, who was so handsome, generous, witty as Clive. To hear Clive sing, as the lad would, whilst they were seated at their work. Or driving along on this happy journey through fair landscapes in the sunshine gave J.J. the keenest pleasure. His wit was a little slow, but he would laugh with his eyes at Clive's alleys, or ponder over them and explode with laughter presently, giving a new source of amusement to these merry travelers. And little Alfred would laugh at J.J.'s laughing, and so... With a hundred harmless jokes to enliven, and the ever-changing, ever-charming smiles of nature to cheer and accompany it, the happy day's journey would come to an end.
So they traveled, by the accustomed route, to the prettiest town of all places, where pleasure has set up her tents, and where the gay, the melancholy, the idle or occupied, grave or haughty, come for amusement or business or relaxation. Where London beauties, having danced and flirted all the season, may dance and flirt a little more. Where well-dressed rogues from all quarters of the world assemble. Where I have seen severe London lawyers, forgetting their wigs in the temple, trying their luck against fortune and Monsieur Benazette. Where wistful schemers conspire and prick cards down. And deeply meditate the infallible coup. And try it. And lose it, and borrow a hundred francs to go home, where even virtuous British ladies venture their little stakes, and draw up their winnings with trembling rakes, by the side of ladies who are not virtuous at all.
No, not even by name, where young prodigals break the bank sometimes, and carry plunder out of a place where Hercules himself could scarcely compel. where you meet wonderful countesses and princesses, whose husbands are almost always absent on their vast estates, in Italy, Spain, Piedmont. Who knows where their lordship's possessions are? While trains of suitors surround those wandering Penelopes, their noble wives, Russian boyars, Spanish grandees of the Order of the Fleece, counts of France, and princes of Poland. and Italian innumerable, who perfume the gilded halls with their tobacco smoke, and swear in all languages against the black and the red. The famous English monosyllable, by which things, persons, luck, even eyes, are devoted to the infernal gods.
We may be sure it's not wanting in that babble. We just want not hear it. "'Dee the luck,' says Lord Q. As the croupier sweeps off his lordship's rouleau. "'Dee the luxe,' says Brown the bagman, who has been backing his lordship with five franc pieces. "'Ah, body of Bacchus,' says Count Felice, whom we all remember a courier. "'Ah, sacre coup,' cries Monsieur le Comte de Florac, as his last Louis parts company from him, each cursing in his native tongue. "'Oh, sweet chorus!' That Lord Q should be at Baden is no wonder. If you heard of him at the finish, or at Buckingham Palace Ball, or in a watch-house, or at the Third Cataract, or at a Newmarket meeting, you would not be surprised. He goes everywhere, does everything with all his might, knows everybody.
Last week he won who knows how many thousand louis from the bank. It appears Brown has chosen one of the unlucky days to back his lordship. He will eat his supper as gaily after a great victory as after a signal defeat. And we know that to win with magnanimity requires much more constancy than to lose. His sleep will not be disturbed by one event or the other. He will play Skittles all the morning with perfect contentment. Romp with children in the forenoon, he is the friend of half the children in the place. Or he will cheerfully leave the green table and all the risk and excitement there to take a hand at sixpenny, whilst with General Fulgee, or to give the six Miss Fulgys a turn each in the ballroom.
From H.R.H., the royal prince of blank, who is the greatest guest at Baden, down to Brown the bad man. who does not consider himself the smallest. Lord Q. is hail fellow with everybody, and has a kind word from and for all.
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28 28 - Chapter 28: In which Clive begins to see the World 1:01:22
In the company assembled at Baden, Clive found one or two old acquaintances, among them his friend of Paris, Monsieur de Florac, not in quite so brilliant a condition as when Newcomb had last met him on the boulevard. Florac owned that fortune had been very unkind to him at Baden. And indeed, she had not only emptied his purse, but his portmanteaus, jewel-box, and linen closet, the contents of all, of which had ranged themselves on the red and black against Monsieur Benazet's crown pieces. Whatever side they took was, however, the unlucky one. This campaign has been my Moscow, mon cher, Florak owned to Clive. I am conquered by Benazet. I have lost in almost every combat. I have lost my treasure, my baggage, my ammunition of war, everything but my honor, which, oh rest, Monsieur Benazet will not accept as a stake.
If he would, there are plenty here, believe me, who would set it on the trente et quarante. Sometimes I have had in mind to go home. My mother, who is an angel all-forgiveness, would receive her prodigal and kill the fatted veal for me. But what would you? He annoys me, the domestic veal. Besides, my brother the Abbey, though the best of Christians, is a Jew upon certain matters, a Benecet, who will not procure absolution except against repentance, and I have not for a sou of repentance in my pocket. I have been sorry, yes, but it was because odd came up in place of even, or the reverse. The accursed, I pray, has chased me like a remorse, and when black has come up, I have wished myself converted to red.
Otherwise, I have no repentance. I am joyeux. Nature has made me so, as she had made my brother devote. The Archbishop of Strasbourg is of our parents. I saw his grandeur when I went lately to Strasbourg, on my last pilgrimage to the Mont de Pieter. I owned to him that I would pawn his cross and ring to go play. The good prelate laughed, and said his chaplain should keep an eye on them. Will you dine with me? The landlord of my hotel was the intendant of our cousin, the Duc de Ivry. And will give me credit to the Day of Judgment. I do not abuse his noble confidence. My dear, there are covers of silver put upon my table every day, with which I could retrieve my fortune, did I listen to the suggestions of Suntanus.
But I say to him, Vate Retro, come and dine with me. DeLuke's kitchen is very good. These easy confessions were uttered by a gentleman who was nearly forty years of age, and who had indeed played the part of a young man in Paris and the great European world so long that he knew or chose to reform no other. He did not want for abilities, had the best temper in the world, was well-bred, and gentleman-like always, and was gay even after Moscow. His courage was known, and his character for bravery and another kind of gallantry probably exaggerated by his bad reputation. Had his mother not been alive, perhaps he would have believed in the virtue of no woman. But this one he worshipped, and spoke with tenderness and enthusiasm of her constant love and patience and goodness.
See her miniature, he said. I never separate myself from it. Oh, never. It saved my life in an affair about—about a woman who was not worth the powder which poor Jules and I burnt for her. His balls struck me here, upon the waistcoat, bruising my rib, and sending me to my bed, which I never should have left alive but for this picture. Oh, she is an angel, my mother. I am sure that Heaven has nothing to deny that saint, and that her tears wash out my sins. Clive smiled. I think Madame Le Florac must reap a good deal, he said. Enormément, my friend. My faith, I do not deny it. I give her cause, night and evening. I am possessed by demons. This little aphenthaler wine of this country has a little smack which is most agreeable.
The passions tear me, my young friend. Play is fatal. But play is not so fatal as woman. Pass me the ecravisus. They are most succulent. Take warning by me, and avoid both. I saw you, Roder, round at the green tables, and marked your eyes as they glistened over the heaps of gold, and looked at some of our beauties of Baden. Beware of such sirens, young man, and take me for your mentor. Avoiding what I have done that understands itself. You have not played as yet. Do not do so. Above all, avoid a martingale if you do. Play ought not to be an affair of calculation, but of inspiration. I have calculated infallibly. And what has been the effect? Gousset empty. Tiwot empty. Nessisev parted for Strasbourg.
Where's my fur police, Frederick? Parbleu. Vous le savez bien, Monsieur Lecomte, says Frederick, the domestic, who was waiting on Clive and his friend. A police lined with true sable and worth 3,000 francs that I won of a little Russian at billiards. That police at Strasbourg, where the infamous worms of the Mount de Paiete, are actually gnawing her. Two hundred francs in this reconnaissance, which Frederick receive, are all that now represent the police. How many chemises have I, Frederick? Eh, parbleu, Monsieur Lecomte. C'est bien qu'en nous avons toujours vingt-cinq chemises, said Frederick, grumbling. Monsieur Lecomte springs up shrieking from the dinner-table. Twenty-four shirts, says he.
And I have been a week without a Louis in my pocket. Belitra. N'y gode. He flings open one drawer after another. But there are no signs of that, surplified fluidity of linen, of which the domestic spoke, whose countenance now changes from a grim frown to a grim smile. Ah, my faithful Frederick, I pardon thee. Mr. Newcomb will understand my harmless supercherie. Frederick was in my company of the guard, and remains with me since. He is Caleb Balderstone, and I am Ravenswood. Yes, I am Edgard. Let us have coffee and a cigar, Balderstone. Plotile, Monsieur Lecomte, says the French Caleb. Thou comprehendest not English. Thou readest not Walter Scott, thou, cries the master. I was recounting to Mr.
Newcomb thy history and my misfortunes. Go seek coffee for us, Nicole. And as the two gentlemen partake of that exhilarating liquor, the elder confides gaily to his guests the reason why he prefers taking coffee at the hotel to the coffee at the great café of the Redoubt, with a D'Re-sur-Jeanne in Rivas et Gustasse, pronounced in the true French manner. Clive was greatly amused by the gaiety of the Viscount after his misfortunes and his Moscow, and thought that one of Mr. Bain's circular notes might not be ill-laid out in succoring this hero. It may have been to this end that Florak's confessions tended, though, to do him justice, the incorrigible young fellow would confide his adventures to anyone who would listen.
And the exact state of his wardrobe, and the story of his pawned police, dressing case, rings, and watches, were known to all, Barton. You tell me to marry and range myself, said Clive, to whom the Viscount was expatiating upon the charms of the superb young Inglis, with whom he had seen Clive walking on the promenade. Why do you not marry and range yourself, too? Ah, my dear, I am married already. You do not know it. I am married since the Revolution of July. Yes, we were poor in those days. As poor we remain. My cousins, the Duke de Vries' sons and his grandson, were still alive. Seeing no other resource in pursuit by the Arabs, I espoused the Vicontus de Florac. I gave her my name, you comprehend, in exchange for her own odious one.
She was Miss Hig. Do you know the family Hig of Manchester in the Comte of Lancaster? She was then a person of a ripe age. The Vecontist is now—ah, it is fifteen years since, and she dies not. Our union was not happy, my friend. Madame Paul de Florac is of the Reformed religion, not of the Anglican Church, you understand, but a dissident I know not of what sort. We inhabited the Hotel de Florac for a while after our union, which was all of convenience, you understand. She filled her salon with ministers to make you die. She assaulted my poor father in his garden chair, when he could not escape her. She told my sainted mother that she was an idolatress, she who only idolatrizes her children. She called us other poor Catholics who followed the rites of our fathers, De Romanusius, and Rome, Babylon, and the Holy Father, a scarlet, eh, a scarlet abomination.
She outraged my mother, that angel, essayed to convert the antechamber and the office. Put little books in the abbey's bedroom. And, my friend, what a good king was Charles IX. And his mother, what a wise sovereign. I lament that Madame Le Fleurac should have escaped the St. Barthélemy, when, no doubt, she was spared on account of her tender age. We have been separated for many years. Her income was greatly exaggerated. Beyond the payment of my debts, I owe her nothing. I wish you could say as much of all the rest of the world. Shall we take a turn of promenade? Mauvais sujet. I see you are longing to be at the green table. Clive was not longing to be at the green table, but his companion was never easy at it or away from it.
Next to winning, losing, Monsieur de Fleurac said, was the best sport. Next to losing, looking on. So he and Clive went down to the Redoubt, where Lord Q was playing with a crowd of awestruck amateurs and breathless punters, admiring his valor and fortune. And Clive, saying that he knew nothing about the game, took out five Napoleons from his purse, and besought Florak to invest them in the most profitable manner at roulette. The other made some faint attempts at a scruple. But the money was speedily laid on the table, where it increased and multiplied amazingly too, so that in a quarter of an hour, Florac brought quite a handful of gold pieces to his principal. Then Clive, I dare say blushing as he made the proposal, offered half the handful of Napoleons to Monsieur de Florac, to be repaid when he thought fit.
And fortune must have been very favorable to the husband of Miss Higg that night, for in the course of an hour, he insisted on paying back Clive's loan, and two days afterwards, appeared with his shirt studs, of course with his shirts also, released from captivity. His watch, rings, and chains on the parade, and was observed to where he celebrated for a police as he drove back in a Britska from Strasbourg. As for myself, wrote Clive, I put back into my purse the five Napoleons with which I had begun, and laid down the whole mass of winnings on the table, where it was doubled and then quadrupled, and then swept up by the croupiers, greatly to my ease of mind. And then Lord Q asked me to supper, and we had a merry night.
This was Mr. Clive's first and last appearance as a gambler. J.J. looked very grave when he heard of these transactions. Clive's French friend did not please his English companion at all, nor the friends of Clive's French friend, the Russians, the Spaniards, the Italians, of sounding titles and glittering decorations, and the ladies who belonged to their society. He saw by chance Ethel, escorted by her cousin Lord Q, passing through a crowd of this company one day. There was not one woman there who was not the heroine of some discreditable story. It was the Countess Calypso, who had been chilted by the Ducalise. It was the Marquise Ariane, to whom the Prince Tessay had behaved so shamefully, and who had taken to Bacchus as a consolation.
It was Madame Madej, who had absolutely killed her old father by her conduct regarding Jason. She had done everything for Jason. She had got him the Trois-en-d'or from the Queen Mother, and now had to meet him every day with his little blonde bride on his arm. J.J. compared Ethel, moving in the midst of these folks, to the lady amidst the rout of Comus. There they were the fauns and satyrs. There they were, the merry pagans, drinking and dancing, dicing and sporting. Laughing out jests that never should be spoken. Whispering rendezvous to be written in midnight calendars. Jeering at honest people who passed under their palace windows. Jolly rebels and repealers of the law. Ah, if Mrs. Brown, whose children are gone to bed at the hotel, knew that the history of that calm, dignified-looking gentleman who sits under her.
And over whose patient back she frantically advances and withdraws her two-franc piece, whilst his own columns of Louis d'Or are offering battle to fortune. How she would shrink away from the shoulder which she pushes. That man so calm and well-bred, with a string of orders on his breast, so well-dressed, with such white hands, has stabbed trusting hearts, severed family ties, Written lying vows, signed false oaths, torn up pitilessly tender appeals for redress, and tossed away into the fire, supplications blistered with tears, packed cards and clogged dice, or used pistol or sword calmly and dexterously as he now ranges his battalions of gold pieces. Ridley shrank away from such lawless people with the delicacy belonging to his timid and retiring nature.
But it must be owned that Mr. Clive was by no means so squeamish. He did not know, in the first place, the mystery of their iniquities, and his sunny, kindly spirit, undimmed by any of the cares which clouded it subsequently, was disposed to shine upon all people alike. The world was welcome to him, the day of pleasure, all nature a gay feast, scarce any dispositions discordant with his own. For pretension only made him laugh, and hypocrisy he will never be able to understand if he lives to be a hundred years old. The night brought him a long sleep, and the morning a glad waking. To those privileges of youth, what enjoyments of age are comparable! What achievements of ambition! What rewards of money and fame!
Clive's happy, friendly nature shone out of his face. And almost all who beheld it fell kindly towards him. As those guileless virgins of romance and ballad, who walked smiling through dark forests, charming off dragons and confronting lions. The young man, as yet, went through the world harmless. No giant waylaid him, as yet. No robbing ogre fed on him. And— Greatest danger of all for one of his ardent nature. No winning enchantress or artful silent coaxed him to her cave, or lured him into her waters. Haunts into which we know so many young simpletons are drawn, where their silly bones are picked and their tender flesh devoured. The time was short which Clive spent at Baden, for it has been said that winter was approaching, And the destination of our young artist was Rome.
But he may have passed some score of days here, to which he and another person in that pretty watering place possibly looked back afterwards as not the unhappiest period of their lives. Among Colonel Newcomb's papers, to which the family biographer has had subsequent access, there are a couple of letters from Clive, dated Bodden at this time. Letter number one says, Ethel is the prettiest girl here. At the assemblies are the princes, counts, dukes, Parthians, Medes, and Elisades. The monosyllable stuff. And as a note to the expression, Dearest Love, with a star to mark the text and the note, are squeezed in the same feminine characters at the bottom of Clive's page the words, That I do, E.N. In letter number two, the first two pages are closely written in Clive's handwriting, describing his pursuits and studies, and giving amusing details of the life at Baden, and the company whom he met there.
Narrating his rencontre with their Paris friend, Monsieur de Florac, and the arrival of the Duchess d'Evry, Florac's cousin, whose titles the Viscount will probably inherit. Not a word about Florac's gambling propensities are mentioned in the letter, but Clive honestly confesses that he has staked five Napoleons, doubled them, quadrupled them, won't ever so much, lost it all back again. And come away from the table with his original five pounds in his pocket, proposing never to play anymore. Ethel, he concluded, is looking over my shoulder. She thinks to be such a delightful creature that she is never easy without me. She bids me to say that I am the best of sons and cousins, and am, in a word, a darling do.
The rest of this important word is not given, but goose. is added in the female hand, in the faded ink, on the yellow paper that may have crossed and recrossed oceans, that has lain locked in chests for years, and buried under piles of family archives, while your friends have been dying and your head has grown white, who has not disinterred mementos like these, from which the past smiles at you so sadly. Shimmering out of Hades an instant, but to sink back again into the cold shades, perhaps, with a faint, faint sound as of a remembered tone, a ghostly echo of a once-familiar laughter. I was looking late at a wall in the Naples Museum, whereon a boy of Herculeum eighteen hundred years ago had scratched with the nail the figure of a soldier.
I could fancy the child turning round and smiling on me after having done his etching. Which of us that is thirty years old has not had his Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the life of youth, the careless sport, the pleasure and passion, the darling joy. You open an old letterbox and look at your own childish scrawls or your mother's letters to you when you were at school. And excavate your heart. O me, for the day when the whole city shall be bare and the chambers unroofed, and every cranny visible to the light above, from the Forum to the Lepinar. Ethel takes up the pen. My dear uncle, she says, while Clive is sketching out of window, let me write you a line or two on his paper, though I know you like to hear no one speak but him.
I wish I could draw him for you as he stands yonder, looking the picture of good health, good spirits, and good humor. Everybody likes him. He is quite unaffected, always gay, always pleased. He draws more and more beautifully every day, and his affection for young Mr. Ridley, who is really a most excellent and astonishing young man, and actually a better artist than Clive himself, is most romantic. And does your son the greatest credit. You will order Clive not to sell his pictures, won't you? I know it is not wrong, but your son might look higher than to be an artist. It is a rise for Mr. Ridley, but a fall for him. An artist, an organist, a pianist. All these are very good people, but you know not to not Ramond, and Clive ought to belong to it.
We met him at Bonn on our way to a great family gathering here, where, I must tell you, we were assembled for what I call the Congress of Baden. The chief of the House of Kew is here, and what time he does not devote to Skittles, to smoking cigars, to the Jeux in the evenings, to Madame d'Ivry, to Madame de Cruciencasse, and the foreign people, of whom there are a host here of the worst kind as usual. He graciously bestows on me. Lord and Lady Dorking are here, with their meek little daughter, Clara Poulain. And Barnes is coming. Uncle Hobson has returned to Lombard Street to relieve Gard. I think you will hear before very long of Lady Clara Newcomb. Grandmama, who was to have presided at the Congress of Baden, and still, you know, reigns over the House of Kew, has been stopped at Kensington.
With an attack of rheumatism. I pity poor Aunt Julia, who can never leave her. Here are all our news. I declare I have filled the whole page. Men way closer than we do. I wear the dear brooch you gave me, often and often. I think of you always dear, kind uncle, as your affectionate Ethel. Besides Roulette and Trondé-Coronnes, a number of amusing games are played at Baden, which are not performed, so to speak, sur table. These little diversions, en Chiré de Société, can go on anywhere, in an alley in the park, in a picnic to this old Schloss, or that pretty hunting lodge, at a tea table in a lodging house or hotel, in a ball at the Redoubt. In the playrooms behind the backs of the gamblers, whose eyes are only cast upon rakes and rouleaux, and red and black, or on the broad walk in front of the conversation rooms, with thousands of people a-drinking and chattering, lounging and smoking, whilst the Austrian Brass Band, in the Little Music Pavilion, plays the most delightful mazurkas and waltzes.
Here, the widow plays her black suit, and sets her bright eyes against the rich bachelor, elderly or young as may be. Here, the artful practitioner, who is telt in a thousand such games, engages the young simpleton with more money than wit. And knowing his weakness and her skill, we may safely take the odds and pack Rouge et Colleur to win. Here, Mama, not having money, perhaps, but metal more attractive, Stakes, her virgin daughter, against Count Fedaker's Forest and Meadows, or Lake Lackland plays his coronet, of which the jewels have long since been in pawn, against Miss Banks' three per cents. And so two or three funny little games were going on at Baden, amongst our immediate acquaintance.
Besides that vulgar sport round the green table, at which the mob, with whom we have little to do, was elbowing each other. A hint of these domestic prolusions has been given to the reader in the foregoing extract from Miss Ethel Newcomb's letter. Likewise, some passions have been in play. Of which a modest young English maiden could not be aware. Do not, however, let us be too prematurely proud of our virtue. The tariff of British virtue is wonderfully organized. Heaven help the society which made its laws. Nats are shut out of its ports, or not admitted without scrutiny and repugnance, whilst herds of camels are let in. The law professes to exclude some goods, or bads, shall we call them, well, some articles of baggage, which are yet smuggled openly under the eyes of winking officers, and worn every day without shame.
Shame? What is shame? Virtue is very often shameful according to the English social constitution, and shame honorable. Truth, if yours happens to differ from your neighbor's, provokes your friend's coldness, your mother's tears, the world's persecution, love is not to be dealt in, save under restrictions which kill its sweet, healthy, free commerce. Sin in man is so light that scarce the fine of a penny is imposed, while for woman it is so heavy that no repentance can wash it out. Ah, yes, all stories old. You proud matrons in your mayfair markets, have you never seen a virgin sold, or sold one? Have you never heard of a poor wayfarer fallen among robbers, and not a Pharisee to help him? Of a poor woman fallen more sadly yet, abject in repentance and tears, and a crowd to stone her?
I pace this broad-bottom walk as the sunset is gilding the hills round about, as the orchestra blows its merry tunes, as the happy children laugh and sport in the alleys, as the lamps of the gambling palace are lighted up, as the throngs of pleasure hunters stroll and smoke and flirt and hum, and wonder sometimes, is it the sinners who are the most sinful? Is it poor prodigal, yonder amongst the bad company, calling black and red and tossing the champagne? Or brother straight-lace that grudges his repentance? Is it downcast hager that slinks away with poor little Ishmael in her hand? Or bitter old virtuous Sarah, who scowls at her from my demure Lord Abraham's arm? One day of the previous May, When, of course, everybody went to visit the watercolor exhibitions, Ethel Newcomb was taken to see the pictures by her grandfather, that rigorous old lady Q, who still proposed to reign over all her family.
The girl had high spirit, and very likely hot words had passed between the elder and the younger lady, such as I am given to understand will be uttered in the most polite families. They came to a piece by Mr. Hunt, representing one of those figures which he knows how to paint with such consummate truth and pathos. A friendless young girl cowering in a doorway, evidently without home or shelter. The exquisite fidelity of the details and the plaintive beauty of the expression of the child attracted old lady Q's admiration, who was an excellent judge of works of art. And she stood for some time looking at the drawing, with Ethel by her side. Nothing in truth could be more simple or pathetic. Ethel laughed, and her grandmother, looking up from her stick on which she hobbled about, saw a very sarcastic expression in the girl's eyes.
You have no taste for pictures, only for painters, I suppose, said Lady Q. I was not looking at the pictures, said Ethel still with a smile. But at the little green ticket in the corner. Sold, said Lady Q. Of course it is sold. All Mr. Hunt's pictures are sold. There is not one of them here on which you won't see the green ticket. He is a most admirable artist. I don't know whether his comedy or tragedy are the most excellent. I think Grandma Ethel said, We young ladies in the world, when we are exhibiting, ought to have little green tickets pinned on our backs, with sold written on them. It would prevent trouble and any future haggling, you know. Then, at the end of the season, the owner would come to carry us home.
Grandmama only said, Ethel, you are a fool, and hobbled on to Mr. Catamaro's picture hard by. What splendid color! What a romantic gloom! What a flowering pencil in Dexter's hand, Lady Q, could delight in pictures, applaud good poetry, and squeeze out a tear over a good novel, too. That afternoon, young Dawkins, the rising watercolor artist, who used to come dearly to the gallery and stand delighted before his own piece, was aghast to perceive that there was no green ticket in the corner of his frame, and he pointed out the deficiency to the keeper of the pictures. His landscape, however, was sold and paid for, so no great mischief occurred. On that same evening, when the Newcomb family assembled a dinner in Park Lane, Ethel appeared with a bright green ticket pinned in the front of her white muslin frock, and when asked what this queer fancy meant, she made Lady Q a curtsy.
Looking her full in the face, and turning round to her father, said, I am a tableau vivant, papa. I am number forty-six in the exhibition of the gallery of painters in watercolors. My love, what do you mean? says Mama. And Lady Q, jumping up on her crooked stick with immense agility, tore the card out of Ethel's bosom, and very likely would have boxed her ears, but that her parents were present, and Lord Q announced. Ethel talked about pictures the whole evening, and would talk of nothing else. Grandmama went away furious. She told Barnes, and when everybody was gone, there was a pretty row in the building, said Madame Ethel, with an arch look, when she narrated the story. Barnes was ready to kill me and eat me, but I never was afraid of Barnes.
And the biographer gathers from this little anecdote, narrated to him, never mind by whom, at a long subsequent period that there had been great disputes in Sir Brian Newcomb's establishment, fierce drawing-room battles, whereof certain pictures of a certain painter might have furnished the cause, and in which Miss Newcomb had the whole of the family forces against her. That such battles take place in other domestic establishments, who shall say or who shall not say? Who, when he goes out to dinner and is received by a bland host with a gay shake of the hand and a pretty hostess with a gracious smile of welcome, dares to think that Mr. Johnson upstairs, half an hour before, was swearing out of his dressing room at Mrs.
Johnson? For having ordered a turbo instead of a salmon. Or that Mrs. Johnson, now talking to Lady Jones so nicely about their mutual darling children, was crying her eyes out as her maid was fastening her gown, as the carriages were actually driving up. The servants know these things, but not we in the dining room. Hark! With what a respectful tone Johnson begs the clergyman present to say grace. Whatever these family quarrels may have been, let bygones be bygones, and let us be perfectly sure that to whatever purpose Miss Ethel Newcomb, for good or for evil, might make her mind up, she had quite spirit enough to hold her own. She chose to be Countess of Q, because she chose to be Countess of Q.
Had she set her heart on marrying Mr. Kuhn, she would have had her way, and made the family adopt it, and called him Dear Fritz, as by his godfathers and godmothers in his baptism, Mr. Kuhn was called. Clive was but a fancy, if he had even been so much as that, not a passion, and she fancied a pretty four-pronged coronet still more. So that the diatribe, wherein we lately indulged about the selling of virgins, by no means applies to Lady Anne Newcomb, who signed the address to Mrs. Stowe the other day, along with thousands of virtuous British matrons. But should the reader happily say, Is thy fable, O poet? Narrated concerning Tancred Pooling, Earl of Dorking, and Sissomagunda, his wife. The reluctant moralist is obliged to own that the cup does fit those noble personages, of whose lofty society you will, however, see but little.
For though I would like to go into an Indian Brahmin's house and see the punkas, and the purders and tatties, and the pretty brown maidens with great eyes and great nose-rings, and painted foreheads, and slim waist cased in cashmere shawls, King Cobb scarves, curly slippers, gilt trousers, precious anklets and bangles, and had the mystery of Eastern existence revealed to me, as who would not who has read the Arabian Nights in his youth? Yet I would not choose the moment when the Brahmin of the house was dead, his women howling, his priests doctoring his child of a widow, now frightening her with sermons, now drugging her with bang. So as to push her on his funeral pile at last, and into the arms of that carcass, stupefied, but obedient and decorous.
And though I like to walk, even in fancy, in an earl's house, splendid, well-ordered, where there are feasts and fine pictures and fair ladies, and endless books and good company. Yet there are times when the visit is not pleasant, and when the parents in that fine house are getting ready their daughter for sale, and frightening away her tears with threats, and stupefying her grief with narcotics. Praying her, and imploring her, and dramming her, and coaxing her, and blessing her, and cursing her, perhaps, till they have brought her into such a state as shall fit the poor young thing for that deadly couch upon which they are about to thrust her. When my lord and lady are so engaged, I prefer not to call at their mansion, No.
1000 in Grosvenor Square. But to partake of a dinner of herbs rather than that of stalled ox, which their cook is roasting whole. There are some people who are not so squeamish. The family comes, of course. The Most Reverend, the Lord Arch-Brahman of Banari's, will attend the ceremony. There will be flowers and lights and white favors, and quite a string of carriages up to the pagoda. And such a breakfast afterwards, and music in the street, and little parish boys hurrahing, and no end of speeches within, and tears shed, no doubt. And His Grace, the Arch Brahmin, will make a highly appropriate speech, just with the faint scent of incense about it, as such a speech ought to have. And the young person will slip away unperceived, and take off her veils, wreaths, orange flowers, Bangles and finery, and will put on a plain dress more suited for the occasion.
And the house door will open, and there comes the sati, in company of the body. Yonder the pile is waiting on four wheels with four horses. The crowd hurrahs, and the deed is done. This ceremony amongst us is so stale and common that to be sure there is no need to describe its rights, and as women sell themselves for what you call an establishment every day, to the applause of themselves, their parents, and the world. Why on earth should a man ape at originality and pretend to pity them? Never mind about the lies at the altar, the blasphemy against the godlike name of love. The sordid surrender, the smiling dishonor. What the deuce does a mariage de covenants mean but all this? And are not such sober, hymen yell torches, more satisfactory often than the most brilliant love matches that ever flamed and burnt out?
Of course. Let us not weep when everybody else is laughing. Let us pity the agonized Duchess when her daughter Lady Atalanta runs away with the doctor. Of course, that's respectable. Let us pity Lady Iphigenia's father when that venerable chief is obliged to offer up his darling child. But it is over her part of the business that a decorous painter would throw the veil now. Her ladyship's sacrifice is performed, and the less said about it, the better. Such was the case regarding an affair which appeared in due subsequent in the newspapers not long afterwards under the fascinating title of Marriage in High Life, and which was in truth the occasion of the Little Family Congress of Baden, which we are now chronicling.
We all know Everybody, at least, who has the slightest acquaintance with the army list, that, at the commencement of their life, my Lord Q, my Lord Viscount Rooster, the Earl of Dorking's eldest son, and the Honorable Charles Belsize, familiarly called Jack Belsize, were subaltern officers in one of His Majesty's regiments of Curacy of Guards. They heard the chimes at midnight like other young men. They enjoyed their fun and frolics as gentlemen of spirit will do, sowing their wild oats plentifully and scattering them with boyish profusion. Lady Q's luck had blessed him with more sacks of oats than fell to the lot of his noble young companions. Lord Dorking's house is known to have been long impoverished.
An excellent informant, Major Pendennis, has entertained me with many edifying accounts of the exploits of Lord Rooster's grandfather, with the wild prints and points, of his feats in the hunting field, over the bottle, over the dice box. He played two nights and two days as they were sitting with Charles Fox when they both lost sums. Awful to reckon. He played often with Lord Stain, and came away, as all men did, dreadful sufferers from those midnight encounters. His descendants incurred the penalties of the progenitors' imprudence. In Chanticleer, though one of the finest castles in England, is splendid but for a month in the year. The estate is mortgaged up to the very castle windows. Torkin cannot cut a stick or kill a buck in his own park, the good old Major used to tell with tragic accents.
He lives by his cabbages, grapes, and pineapples, and the fees which people give for seeing the place and gardens, which is still the show of the county and among the most splendid in the island. When Dorking is at Chanticleer, Ballard, who married his sister, lends him the plate and sends three men with it. Four cooks inside, and four maids and six footmen on the roof, with a butler driving, come down from London in a trap, and wait the month. And as the last carriage of the company drives away, the servants' coach is packed, and they all bowled back to town again. It's pitiable, sir, pitiable. In Lord Q's youth, the names of himself and his two noble friends appeared on innumerable slips of stamp paper, conveying pecuniary assurances of a promissory nature, all of which promises by Lord Q singly and most honorably discharged.
Neither of his two companions-in-arms had the means of meeting these engagements. Ballard, Rooster's uncle, was said to make his lordship some allowance. As for Jack Belsize, how he lived, how he laughed, how he dressed himself so well, and looked so fat and handsome, how he got a shilling to pay for a cab or a cigar. What ravens fed him was a wonder to all. The young men claimed kinsmanship with one another, which those who are learned in the peerage may unravel. When Lord Dorking's eldest daughter married the Honorable and Venerable Dennis Gallo-Glass, Archdeacon of Bullen-Tubber, and at present Viscount Gallo-Glass and Kilbroke, and Lord Bishop of Ballyshannon, great festivities took place at Chanticleer, whither the relatives of the high contracting parties were invited.
Among them came poor Jack Belsize. And hence the tears which are dropping at Bodden at this present period of our history. Clara Poulain was then a pretty little maiden of sixteen, and Jack, a handsome guardsman of six or seven and twenty, as she had been especially warned against Jack as a wicked young rogue, whose antecedents were woefully against him, as she was never allowed to sit near him at dinner, or to walk with him, or to play at billiards with him. Or, to waltz with him, as she was scolded if he spoke a word to her, or if he picked up her glove, or touched her hand in a round game, or caught him when they were playing at Blind Man's Buff. As they neither of them had a penny in the world, and were both very good-looking, of course, Clara was always catching Jack at Blind Man's Buff, constantly lighting upon him in the shrubberies of corridors, etc., etc.
She fell in love. She was not the first, with Jack's broad chest and thin waist. She thought his whiskers as indeed they were, the handsomest pair in all his majesty's brigade of curacies. We know not what tears were shed in the vast and silent halls of Chanticleer when the company were gone, and the four cooks and four maids Six footmen and temporary butler had driven back in their private trap to the metropolis, which is not forty miles distant from that slender castle. How can we tell? The guests departed, the lodge gates shut. All is mystery. Darkness with one pair of wax candles blinking dismally in a solitary chamber. All the rest, dreary vistas of browned hollands, rolled turkey carpets, Gaunt ancestors on the walls, scowling out of the twilight blank.
The imagination is at liberty to depict his lordship, with one candle, over his dreadful endless tapes and papers, her ladyship with the other, and an old, old novel wherein, perhaps, Mrs. Radcliffe describes the castle as dreary as her own. And poor little Clara sighing and crying in the midst of these funereal splendors, as lonely and heartsick as Orianna in her moated grange. Poor little Clara. Lord Q's drag took the young men to London, his lordship driving, and the servants sitting inside. Jack sat behind with the two grooms and tooted on a cornet, a piston, in the most melancholy manner. He partook of no refreshment on the road. His silence at his clubs was remarked. Smoking, billiards, military duties, and this and that roused him a little, and presently Jack was alive again.
But then came the season. Lady Clara Poulain's first season in London, and Jack was more alive than ever. There was no ball he did not go to, no opera, That is to say, no opera of certain operas, which he did not frequent. It was easy to see by his face, two minutes after entering a room, whether the person he sought was there or absent. Not difficult for those who were in the secret to watch in another pair of eyes the bright kindling signals which answered Jack's fiery glances. Ah, how beautiful he looked on his charger on the birthday. All in a blaze of scarlet and bullion and steel. Oh, Jack, tear her out of yon carriage, from the side of yonder livid, feathered, painted, bony dowager. Place her behind you on the black charger.
Cut down the policeman, and away with you. The carriage rolls in through St. James Park. Jack sits alone with his sword dropped to the ground. or only Atra Koura on the crupper behind him, and Snip, the tailor in the crowd, thinks it is for fear of him Jack's head droops. Lady Clara Poulain is presented by her mother, the Countess of Dorking, and Jack is arrested that night as he is going out of wights to meet her at the opera. Jack's little exploits are known in the insolvent court. Where he made his appearances as Charles Belsize, commonly called the Honorable Charles Belsize, whose dealings were smartly chronicled by the indignant moralists of the press of those days. The scourge flogged him heartily.
The whip, of which the accomplished editor was himself in White Cross Street Prison, was especially virtuous regarding him, and the penny voice of freedom gave him an awful dressing. I am not here to scourge sinners. I am true to my party. It is the other side this humble pen attacks. Let us keep to the virtuous and respectable, for as for poor sinners, they get the whipping post every day. One person was faithful to poor Jack, through all his blunders and follies and extravagance and misfortunes. And that was the pretty young girl of Chanticleer. Round whose young affections his luxuriant whiskers had curled. And the world may cry out at Lord Q for sending his brogan to the Queen's Bench Prison, and giving a great feast at Grigman's to Jack on the day of his liberation.
But I, for one, will not quarrel with his lordship. He and many other sinners had a jolly night. They said Q made a fine speech. In hearing and acknowledging which Jack Belsize wept copiously, Barnes Newcomb was in a rage at Jack's manumission, and sincerely hoped Mr. Commissioner would give him a couple of years longer, and cursed and swore with a great liberality on hearing of his liberty. That this poor prodigal should marry Clara Poulain, and by way of a dowry lay his schedule at her feet, was out of the question. His noble father, Lord Highgate, was furious against him. His eldest brother would not see him. He had given up all hopes of winning his darling prize long ago. And one day there came to him a great packet bearing the seal of Chanticleer, containing a wretched little letter signed CP, and a dozen sheets of Jack's own clumsy writing.
Delivered, who knows how, in what crush-rooms, quadrilles, bouquets, balls, and in which were Skrulljack's love and passion and ardor. How many a time had he looked into the dictionary at White's, to see whether eternal was spelled with an E, and a door with one A or two. There they were, the incoherent utterances of his brave longing heart. And those two wretched, wretched lines signed C, begging that C's little letters might too be returned or destroyed. To do him justice, he burnt them loyally, every one along with his own waste paper. He kept not one single little token which he had given him, or let him take. The rose, the glove, the little handkerchief which he had dropped to him. How he cried over them.
The ringlet of golden hair. He burnt them all, all in his own fire in the prison, save a little, little bit of the hair, which might be any one's, which was the color of his sister's. Q saw the deed done. Perhaps he hurried away when Jack came to the very last part of the sacrifice, and flung the hair into the fire, where he would have liked to fling his heart and his life to. So Clara was free, and the year when Jack came out of prison and went abroad, she passed the season in London, dancing about night after night, and everybody said she was well out of that silly affair with Jack Belsize. It was then that Barnes Newcomb, Esquire, a partner of the wealthy banking firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcomb, son and heir of Sir Brian Newcomb, of Newcomb, Bart, and M.P., Descended in right line from Brian D.
Newcomb, slain at Hastings, and Barbara's surgeon to Edward the Confessor, etc., etc., cast the eyes of regard on the Lady Clara Poulain, who was a little pale and languid, certainly, but had blue eyes, a delicate skin, and a pretty person. And knowing her previous history as well as you, who have just perused it, Deign to entertain matrimonial intentions towards her ladyship. Not one of the members of these most respectable families, excepting poor little Clara, perhaps, poor little fish, as if she had any call but to do her duty or to ask a quel sauce elle s'arrête manger, protested against this little affair of traffic. Lady Dorkin had a brood of little chickens to succeed Clara. There was little Henny, who was sixteen, and Biddy, who was fourteen, and Adelaide, and who knows how many more.
How could she refuse a young man? Not very agreeable, it is true, nor particularly amiable, nor of good birth, at least on his father's side, but otherwise eligible, an heir to so many thousands a year. The Newcombs on their side think it is a desirable match. Barnes, it must be confessed, is growing rather selfish, and has some bachelor ways which a wife will reform. Lady Q is strongly for the match. With her own family interest, Lord Stain and Lord Q, her nephews, and Barnes' own father-in-law, Lord Dorking, and the peers, why shall not the Newcombs sit there too? And resumed the oath seat which all the world knows they had in the time of Richard III. Barnes and his father had got up quite a belief about a Newcomb killed at Bosworth, along with King Richard, and hated Henry VII as an enemy of their noble race.
So all the parties were pretty well agreed. Lady Anne wrote rather a pretty little poem about welcoming the fair fawn to the Newcomb Bowers, and Clara was made to rhyme with fairer, and timid does and antlered deers to dot the glades of Chanticleer, quite in a picturesque way. Lady Q pronounced that the poem was very pretty indeed. The year after Jack Belsize made his foreign tour, he returned to London for the season. Lady Clara did not happen to be there. Her health was a little delicate, and her kind parents took her abroad, so all things went on very smoothly and comfortably indeed. Yes, but when things were so quiet and comfortable, when the ladies of the two families had met at the Congress at Baden and liked each other so much.
When Barnes and his papa, the baronet, recovered from his illness, were actually on their journey from Aix-L-Chapelle and Lady Q, in motion from Kinsingen to the Congress of Baden, why on earth should Jack Belsize, haggard, wild, having been winning great sums, it was said, at Homburg, forsake his luck there and run over frantically to Baden? He wore a great thick beard, a great slouched hat, He looked like nothing more or less than a painter or an Italian brigand. Unsuspecting Clive, remembering the jolly dinner which Jack had procured for him at the guards' mess in St. James, where the Jack himself came from the horse guards, simple Clive, seeing Jack enter the town, hailed him cordially and invited him to dinner, and Jack accepted, and Clive told him all the news he had of the place, how Q was there, And Lady Anne Newcomb and Ethel.
And Barnes was coming. I am not very fond of him either, says Clive, smiling when Belsize mentioned his name. So Barnes was coming to marry that pretty little Lady Clara Poulain. The knowing youth. I dare say he was rather pleased with this knowledge of the fashionable world, and the idea that Jack Belsize would think he, too, was somebody. Jack drank an immense quantity of champagne, and the dinner over, as they could hear the band playing from Clive's open windows in the snug, clean little Hotel de France, Jack proposed they should go on the promenade. Monsieur de Florac was out the party. He had been exceedingly jocular when Lord Q's name was mentioned, and said, L'honorée d'un améthée tout particulière.
These three gentlemen walked out. The promenade was crowded. The band was playing. Home, sweet home, very sweetly. And the very first persons they met on the walk were the Lords of Kew and Dorking, on the arm of which latter venerable Pierre, his daughter Lady Clara, was hanging. Jack Belsize, in a velvet coat, with a sombrero slouched over his face, with a beard reaching to his waist, was, no doubt, not recognized at first by the noble lord of Dorking. For he was greeting the other two gentlemen with his usual politeness and affability, when, of a sudden, Lady Clara, looking up, gave a little shriek and fell down lifeless on the gravel block. Then the old earl recognized Mr. Belsize. And Clive heard him say, You villain!
How dare you come here! Belshazz had flung himself down to lift up Clara, calling her frantically by her name, when Old Dorking sprang to seize him. Hands off, my lord, said the other, shaking the old man from his back. Confound you, Jack! Hold your tongue, roars our cue. Clive runs for a chair, and a dozen were forthcoming. Florek skips back with a glass of water. Belsize runs towards the awakening girl, and the father, for an instant, losing all patience and self-command, trembling in every limb, lifts his stick and says again, leave her, you ruffian. Lady Clara has fainted again, sir, says Captain Belsize. I am staying at the Hotel de France. If you touch me, old man, This in a very low voice.
By heaven, I shall kill you. I wish you good morning. And taking a last long look at the lifeless girl, he lifts his hat and walks away. Lord Dorking mechanically takes his hat off and stands stupidly gazing after him. He beckoned Clive to follow him, and a crowd of the frequenters of the place are, by this time, closed round the fainting young lady. Here was a pretty incident. In the Congress of Baden.
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29 29 - Chapter 29: In which Barnes comes a-wooing 27:03
Had all along known that her holiday was to be a short one, and that, her papa and Barnes arrived, there was to be no more laughing and fun and sketching and walking with Clive. So she took the sunshine while it lasted, determined to bear with a stout heart the bad weather. Sir Brian Newcomb and his eldest born arrived at Baden on the very night of Jack Balsize's performance upon the promenade. Of course, it was necessary to inform the young bridegroom of the facts. His acquaintances of the public, who by this time know his temper and are acquainted with his language, can imagine the explosions of the one and the vehemence of the other. It was a perfect for the defeats of oaths which he sent up.
Mr. Newcomb only filed off these volleys of curses when he was in a passion. But then he was in a passion very frequently. As for Lady Clara's little accident, he was disposed to treat that very lightly. Poor dear Clara, of course, of course, he said. She's been accustomed to fainting fits. No wonder she was agitated on the sight of that villain, after his infernal treatment of her. If I had been there, a volley of oaths comes here along the whole line. I should have strangled the scoundrel. I should have murdered him. Mercy, Barnes, cries Lady Anne. It was a mercy Barnes was not there, says Ethel. Gravely, a fight between him and Captain Belsize would have been awful indeed. I am afraid of no man, Ethel, says Barnes fiercely, with another oath.
Hit one of your own size, Barnes, says Miss Ethel. who had a number of school phrases from her little brothers and used them on occasion skillfully. Hit Captain Belsize. He has no friends. As Jack Belsize, from his height and strength, was fitted to be not only an officer but actually a private in his former gallant regiment, and Brother Barnes was but a puny young gentleman, the idea of a personal conflict between them was rather ridiculous. Some notion of this sort may have passed through Sir Brian's mind, for the baronet said with his usual solemnity, It is the cause, Ethel, it is the cause, my dear, which gives strength in such a cause as Barnes's. With a beautiful young creature to protect from a villain, any man would be strong.
Any man would be strong. Since his last attack, Barnes used to say, My poor old governor's exceedingly shaky. Very groggy about the head, which was the fact. Barnes was already master at Newcomb and the bank, and awaiting with perfect composure the event which was to place the blood-bred hand of the Newcomb baronetcy on his own Brogham. Casting his eyes about the room, a heap of drawings, the work of a well-known hand which he hated, met his eye. There were a half-dozen sketches of Baden. Ethel on horseback again, the children and the dogs just in the old way. "'Dee him! Is he here?' screams out Barnes. "'Is that young pothouse villain here? And hasn't Q knocked his head off? Is Clive Newcomb here, sir?' he cries out to his father.
"'The Colonel's son. I have no doubt they met by.' "'By what, Barnes?' says Ethel. "'Clive is here, is he?' says the baronet. Making caricatures say, you did not mention him in your letters, Lady Anne. Sir Brian was evidently very much touched by his last attack. Ethel blushed. It was a curious fact, but there had been no mention of Clive in the lady's letters to Sir Brian. My dear, we met him by the mayor's chance at Bonn, traveling with a friend of his. And he speaks a little German, and was very useful to us, and took one of the boys in his Britska the whole way. "'Boys always crowd in a carriage,' says Sir Brian. "'Kick your shins always in the way.' I remember when we used to come in the carriage from Clapham, when we were boys.
I used to kick my brother Tom's shins. Poor Tom. He was a devilish wild fellow in those days." You don't recollect Tom, my Lady Anne. Further anecdotes from Sir Brian are interrupted by Lord Q's arrival. Howdy-do, Q, cries Barn. How's Clara? And Lord Q, walking up with great respect to shake hands with Sir Brian, says, I am glad to see you looking so well, sir, and scarcely takes any notice of Barn's. That Mr. Barnes Newcomb was an individual, not universally beloved, is a point of history of which there can be no doubt. "'You have not told me how Clara is, my good fellow,' continues Barnes. "'I have heard all about her meeting with that villain, Jack Belzeyes.' "'Don't call names, my good fellow,' says Lord Q.' It strikes me you don't know Belsize well enough to call him by nicknames or by other names.
Lady Clara Poulain, I believe, is very unwell indeed. Confound the fellow! How did he come here, cries Barnes, backing from this little rebuff. Dare is another ugly word. I would advise you not to use it to the fellow himself. What do you mean, says Barnes, looking very serious in an instant? Easy, my good friend. Not so very loud. It appears, Ethel, that poor Jack. I know him pretty well, you see, Barnes, and may call him by what names I like. Had been dining to-day with Cousin Clive. He and Monsieur de Florac And that they went with Jack to the promenade, not in the least aware of Mr. Jack Belsize's private affairs, or of the shindy that was going to happen. By Jove, he shall answer for it, cries out Barnes in a loud voice.
I dare say he will if you ask him, says the other dryly. But not before ladies. He'd be afraid of frightening them. Poor Jack was always as gentle as a lamb before women. "'I had some talk with the Frenchman just now,' continued Lord Q. gaily, as if wishing to pass over this side of the subject. "'Me Lord Q.' says he. "'We have made your friend Jacques. Do he a reason? He is a little fool.' "'Your friend Jacques.' "'He drank champagne at dinner like an ogre. How is the charmante Miss Clara?' "'Florac, you see,' calls her Miss Clara." Barnes. The world calls her Lady Clara. You call her Clara, you happy dog, you. I don't see why that infernal young cub of a Clive is always meddling in our affairs, cries out Barnes, whose rage was perpetually being whipped into new outcries.
Why has he been about this house? Why is he here? "'It is very well for you that he was Barnes,' Lord Q said. "'The young fellow showed great temper and spirit. "'There has been a famous row. "'But don't be alarmed. It is all over. "'It is all over. "'Everybody may go to bed and sleep comfortably. "'Barnes need not get up in the morning "'to punch Jack Belsize's head. "'I'm sorry for your disappointment. "'You Fenchurch Street fire-eater. "'Come away!' It will be but proper, you know, for a bridegroom elect to go and ask news of L'Archamonte Miss Clara. As we went out of the house, Lord Q. told Clive, I said to Barnes that every word I had uttered upstairs with regard to the reconciliation was a lie, that Jack Belsize was determined to have his blood, and was walking under the lime-trees by which we had to pass with a thundering big stick.
You should have seen the state the fellow was in, sir. The sweet youth started back and turned as yellow as a cream cheese. Then he made a pretext to go into his room and said it was for his pocket handkerchief. But I know it was for a pistol, for he dropped his hand from my arm into his pocket every time I said, here's Jack, as we walked down the avenue to Lord Dorking's apartment. A great deal of animated business had been transacted during the two hours subsequent to poor Lady Clara's mishap. Clive and Belsize had returned to the former's quarters, while gentle J.J. was utilizing the last rays of the sun to tint a sketch which he had made during the morning. He fled to his own apartment on the arrival of the fierce-looking stranger, whose glaring eyes, pallid looks, Shaggy beard, clutched hands, and incessant gasps and mutterings as he strode up and down might well scare a peaceable person.
Very terrible must Jack have looked as he trampled those boards in the growing twilight, a non-stopping to drink another tumbler of champagne, then groaning expressions of inarticulate wrath, and again sinking down on Clive's bed with a dropping head and breaking voice, crying. Poor little thing. Poor little devil. If the old man sends me a message, you will stand by me, won't you, Newcomb? He was a fierce old fellow in his time, and I have seen him shoot straight enough at Chanticleer. I suppose you know what the affair is about? I never heard of it before, but I think I understand, says Clive gravely. I can't ask Q. He is one of the family. He is going to marry Miss Newcomb. It is no use asking him.
All Clive's blood tingled at the idea that any man was going to marry Miss Newcomb. He knew it before, a fortnight since, and it was nothing to him to hear it. He was glad that the growing darkness prevented his face from being seen. I am of the family, too," said Clive, and Barnes Newcomb and I had the same grandfather. Oh, yes, old boy, old banker, the weaver. What was he? I forgot, says poor Jack, kicking on Clive's bed. In that family, the Newcombs don't count. I beg your pardon, groans poor Jack. They lapse into silence, during which Jack's cigar glimmers from the twilight corner where Clive's bed is, whilst Clive wafts his fragrance out of the window where he sits, and once he has a view of Lady Anne Newcomb's windows to the right.
Over the bridge across the little rushing river, at the Hotel de Holland, hard by. The lights twinkle in the booths under the pretty limed avenues. The hum of distant voices is heard. The gambling palace is all in a blaze. It is an assembly night, and from the doors of the conversation rooms, as they open and close, escape gusts of harmony. Behind, on the little hill, the darkling woods lie calm. The edges of the fir-trees cut sharp against the sky, which is clear with the crescent moon and the lamped lights of the starry hosts of heaven. Clive does not see pine-robed hills and shining stars, nor think of pleasure in his palace yonder, nor of pain writhing on his own bed within a few feet of him.
Where poor Bell's eyes was groaning. His eyes are fixed upon a window whence comes the red light of a lamp, across which shadows float now and again. So every light in every booth yonder has a scheme of its own. Every star above shines by itself, and each individual heart of ours goes on brightening with its own hopes, burning with its own desires, and quivering with its own pain. The reverie is interrupted by the waiter, who announces, Monsieur le Vicomte de Florac, and a third cigar is added to the other two smoky lights. Belsize is glad to see Florac, whom he has known in a thousand haunts. He will do my business for me. He has been out half a dozen times, thinks Jack. It would relieve the poor fellow's boiling blood that someone would let a little out.
He lays his affair before Florac. He expects a message from Lord Dorkin. "'Comment donc?' cries Florac. "'Il y avait un quelque chose. Cette pauvre petite miss. Vous voulez tuer le père? Après avoir délaissé la fille. Cherchez d'autres tomons, monsieur.' Le vicomte de Florac ne se fait pas complice de telles l'achete. "'By heaven,' says Jack, sitting up on the bed, with his eyes glaring, "'I have a great mind, Florac, "'to wring your infernal little neck, "'and to fling you out of the window. "'Is all the world going to turn against me?' I am half mad as it is. If any man dares to think anything wrong regarding that little angel, or to fancy that she is not as pure and as good and as gentle and as innocent by heaven as any angel there, if any man thinks I'd be the villain to hurt her, I should just like to see him," says Jack.
By the Lord, sir, just bring him to me. Just tell the waiters to send him upstairs. Hurt her. I heard her. Oh, I'm a fool. A fool. A D.D. fool. Who's that? It's Q, says a voice out of the darkness, from behind cigar number four, and Clive now, having a party assembled, scrapes a match and lights his candles. I heard your last words, Jack, Lord Q said bluntly, and you never spoke more truth in your life. Why did you come here? What right had you to stab that poor little heart over again? And frighten Lady Clara with your confounded, hairy face. You promised me you would never see her. You gave your word of honor you wouldn't, when I gave you the money to go abroad. Hang the money. I don't mind that.
It was on your promise that you would prowl about her no more. The Dorkings left London before you came there. They gave you your innings. They have behaved kindly and fairly enough to that poor girl. How is she to marry such a bankrupt beggar as you are? What you have done is a shame," Charlie Bell sighs. I tell you, it is unmanly and cowardly. Psst, says Florak. Numero deux. Voila le mot traché. Don't bite your thumb at me, Q went on. I know you could thrash me, if that's what you mean by shaking your fists. So could most men. I tell you again, you have done a bad deed. You have broken your word of honor, and you knocked on Claripool Lane today as cruelly as if you had done it with your hand.
With this rush upon him, and fiery assault of Q, Belsize was quite bewildered. The huge man flung up his great arms and let them drop at his side as a gladiator that surrenders, and asks for pity. He sank down once more on the iron bed. "'I don't know,' says he, rolling and rolling round in one of his great hands, one of the brass knobs of the bed by which he was seated. "'I don't know, Frank,' says he, "'what the world is coming to, or me either.' Here is twice in one night I have been called a coward by you, and by that little what-do-you-call-em. I beg your pardon, Florak. I don't know whether it is very brave in you to hit a chap when he is down. Hit again. I have no friends. I have acted like a blackguard.
I own that. I did break my promise. You had that safe enough, Frank, my boy. But I did not think it would hurt her to see me," says he. With a dreadful sob in his voice. Bye. I would have given ten years of my life to look at her. I was going mad without her. I tried every place, everything. Went to Ems, to Wiesbaden, to Hamburg, and played like hell. It used to excite me once, and now I don't care for it. I won no end of money. No end for a poor beggar like me, that is. But I couldn't keep away. I couldn't, and if she had been at the North Pole, by heavens, I would have followed her. And so just to look at her, just to give your confounded, stupid eyes two minutes' pleasure. You must bring about all this pain, you great baby, cries Q, who was very soft-hearted and, in truth, quite torn himself by the sight of poor Jack's agony.
Get me to see her for five minutes, Q, cries the other. Gripping the comrade's hand in his, but for five minutes. For shame, cries Lord Q, shaking away his hand. Be a man, Jack, and have no more of this puling. It's not a baby that must have its toy, and cries because it can't get it. Spare the poor girl this pain, for her own sake, and balk yourself of the pleasure of bullying and making her unhappy. Belsai started up with looks that were by no means pleasant. There's enough of this chap I have been called names, and black-hearted quite sufficiently for one sitting. I shall act as I please. I choose to take my own way, and if any gentleman stops me he has full warning. And he fell to tugging his mustachios, which were of a dark, tawny hue, and looked as warlike.
As he had ever done on any field day. I take the warning, said Lord Q, and if I know the way you are going, as I think I do, I will do my best to stop you, madman as you are. You can hardly propose to follow her to her own doorway and pose yourself before your mistress as the murderer of her father, like Rodriguez in the French play. If Rooster were here, it would be his business to defend his sister. In his absence, I will take the duty on myself, and I say to you, Charles Belsize, in the presence of these gentlemen, that any man who insults this young lady, who persecutes her with his presence, knowing it can but pain her, who persists in following her when he has given his word of honor to avoid her, that such man is...
"'What, my lord, Q,' cries Belsize, whose chest began to heave. "'You know what,' answers the other. "'You know what a man is who insults a poor woman and breaks his word of honor. Consider the word said, and act upon it as you think fit.' "'I owe you four thousand pounds, Q,' says Belsize, "'and I have got four thousand on the bills, besides four hundred when I came out of that place.' "'You insult me more,' cries Q. flashing out, "'by alluding to the money. "'If you will leave this place tomorrow, well and good. "'If not, you will please to give me a meeting. "'Miss Janookin, will you be so kind as to act as my friend? "'We are connections, you know, "'and this gentleman chooses to insult a lady "'who is about to become one of our family.
"'C'est bien, mes lords. Ma foi. C'est de guerre. "'A vrai gentelhomme,' says Florac, delighted, "'to chez la moufite Q.' "'To le coeur! Goddamn! You are a brave, a brave fellow!' And the Viscount reached out his hand cordially to Lord Q.' His purpose was evidently pacific. From Q he turned to the great guardsman, and, taking him by the coat, began to apostrophize him. "'And you, mon gros,' said he. Is there no way of calming this hot blood without a sangree? Have you a penny to the world? Can you hope to carry off your cheminée, oh Rodrigue, and live by robbing afterwards on the great way? Suppose you kill Zephajier. You kill Kieu. You kill Roustère. Your Kimet will have a pretty moon of honey.
What the devil do you mean about your chemin, your Rodrigue? "'Do you mean by Kant?' says Belsize. Jack Belsize once more, and he dashed his hand across his eye. "'Q has riled me, and he drove me half-wild. I ain't much of a Frenchman, but I know enough of what you said to say it's true, by Jove, and that Frank Q's a trump. That's what you mean. Give us your hand, Frank. God bless you, old boy.'" Don't be too hard upon me. You know I'm dead, miserable that I am. Hello, what's this? Jack's pathetic speech was interrupted at this instant, for the Vicon to Florek, in his enthusiasm, rushed into his arms and jumped up towards his face and proceeded to kiss Jack. A roar of immense laughter as he shook the little Vicon off, cleared the air, and ended this quarrel.
Everybody joined in this chorus. The Frenchman with the West, who said, he loved to laugh meme when he did not know why. And now came the moment of the evening when Clive, according to Lord Q's saying, behaved so well and prevented Barnes from incurring a great danger. In truth, what Mr. Clive did or said amounted exactly to nothing. What moments can we not all remember in our lives when it would have been so much wittier and wiser to say and do nothing? Florak, a very sober drinker like most of his nation, was blessed with a very fine appetite, which, as he said, renewed itself thrice a day at least. He now proposed supper, and poor Jack was for supper too, and especially more drink, champagne, and seltzer water.
Bring champagne and salsa water. There is nothing like it. Clive could not object to this entertainment, which was ordered forthwith, and the four young men sat down to share it. Whilst Florac was partaking of his favorite Giving not only his palate but his hands, his beard, his mustachios, and cheeks the full enjoyment of the sauce which he found so delicious, he chose to revert now and again to the occurrences which had just passed, and which had better, perhaps, had been forgotten, and gaily rallied Belsize upon his warlike humor. If C. Petit Verdante was here, what would you have done with him, Jacques? "'You would croak of him, like this escarovice, ain't. You wouldn't rock of his bones, ain't.' Jack, who had forgotten to put the seltzer water into his champagne, writhed at the idea of having Barnes Newcomb before him, and swore, could he but see Barnes, he would take the little villain's life.
And, but for Clive, Jack might actually have beheld his enemy. Young Clive, after the meal, went to the window with his eternal cigar, and of course began to look at that other window. Here, as he looked, a carriage had at that moment driven up. He saw two servants descend, then two gentlemen, and then he heard a well-known voice swearing at the couriers. To his credit, be it said, he checked the exclamation which was on his lips, and when he came back to the table, did not announce to Q or his right-hand neighbor, Belsize, that his uncle and Barnes had arrived. Belsize, by this time, had had quite too much wine. When the Viscount went away, poor Jack's head was nodding. He had been awake all the night before, sleepless for how many nights previous?
He scarce took any notice of the Frenchman's departure. Lord Q remained. He was for taking Jack to walk, and for reasoning with him further, and for entering more at large than perhaps he chose to do before the two others upon this family dispute. Clive took a moment to whisper to Lord Q. My uncle and Barnes are arrived. Don't let Bell's Eyes go out. For goodness' sake, let us get him to bed. Unless the poor fellow should take a fancy to visit his mistress by moonlight, when he was safe in his room, Lord Q softly turned the key in Mr. Jack's door.
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30 30 - Chapter 30: A Retreat 44:21
A Retreat. As Clive lay awake, revolving the strange incidents of the day, and speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to take a certain part, a sure presentiment told him that his own happy holiday was to come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had always somehow foreboded were about to break and obscure this brief, pleasant period of sunshine. He rose at a very early hour, Flung his windows open, looked out no doubt towards those other windows in the neighboring hotel, where he may have fancied he saw a curtain stirring, drawn by a hand that every hour now he longed more to press. He turned back into his chamber, with a sort of groan, and surveyed some of the relics of last night's little feast, which still remained on the table.
There were the champagne flasks, which poor Jack Pelsice had emptied, the tall salsa water bottle, from which the gases had issued and mingled with the hot air of the previous night's talk. Glasses with dregs of liquor, ashes of cigars, or their black stumps, strewing the cloth. The dead men, the burst guns of yesterday's battle. Early as it was, his neighbor J.J. had been up before him. Clive could hear him singing, as was his wont, when the pencil went well, and the colors arranged themselves to his satisfaction over his peaceful and happy work. He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his board and color box, filled a great glass from the seltzer-water bottle, drank some of the vapored liquor, and plunged his brushes in the rest, with which he began to paint.
The work all went wrong. There was no song for him over his labor. He dashed brush and board aside after a while, opened his drawers, pulled out his portmanteaus from under the bed, and fell to packing mechanically. J.J. heard the noise from the next room, and came in smiling, with a great painting brush in his mouth. "'Have the bills in, JJ,' says Clive. "'Leave your cards on your friends, old boy. "'Say goodbye to that pretty little strawberry girl "'whose picture you have been doing. "'Polish it off today, and dry the little thing's tears.' "'I read PPC and the Stars last night, "'and my familiar spirit came to me in a vision and said, "'Clive, son of Thomas, put thy traveling boots on.'" Lest any premature moralist should prepare to cry fi against the good, pure-minded little J.
J., I hereby state that his strawberry girl was a little village maiden of seven years old, whose sweet little picture a bishop purchased at the next year's exhibition. "'Are you going already?' cried J. J., removing the bit out of his mouth. "'I thought you had arranged parties for a week to come.' and that the princesses and the duchesses had positively forbidden the departure of your lordship. We have dallied a Capuit long enough, says Clive, and the legions have the route for Rome. So wills Hannibal, the son of Hasdrubal. The son of Hasdrubal is quite right, his companion answered. The sooner we march, the better. I have always said it. I will get all the accounts in. Hannibal has been living like a voluptuous Carthaginian prince.
One, two, three champagne bottles. There will be a deuce of a bill to pay. Ah, there will be a deuce of a bill to pay, says Clive with a groan, whereof J.J. knew the portent. For the young men had the confidence of youth, one in another. Clive was accustomed to pour out his full heart to any crony who was near him. And indeed, had he spoken ever a word, his growing attachment to his cousin was not hard to see. A hundred times, and with the glowing language and feelings of youth, with the fire of his twenty years, with the ardor of a painter, he had spoken of her and described her. Her magnanimous simplicity, her courage and lofty scorn, her kindness towards her little family, her form, Her glorious color of rich carnation and dazzling white, her queenly grace, when quiescent and in motion, had constantly formed the subjects of this young gentleman's ardent eulogies.
As he looked at a great picture or statue, as the Venus de Milo, calm and deep, unfathomably beautiful as the sea from which he sprung, as he looked at the rushing aurora of the Ross-pigs Leosi, Or the Assumption of Titian, more bright and glorious than sunshine, or that divine Madonna and divine infant, of Dresden, whose sweet faces must have shone upon Raphael out of heaven. His heart sang hymns, as it were, before these gracious altars, and, somewhat as he worshipped these masterpieces of his art, he admired the beauty of Ethel. J. J. felt these things exquisitely after his manner. and enjoyed honest Clive's mode of celebration and rapturous fiorator of song. But Ridley's natural note was much gentler, and he sang his hymns in plaintive minors.
Ethel was all that was bright and beautiful, but she was engaged to Lord Q. The shrewd, kind confidant used gently to hint the sad fact to the impetuous hero of this piece. The impetuous hero knew this quite well. As he was sitting over his painting board, he would break forth frequently, after his manner, in which laughter and sentiment were mingled, and roar out with all the force of his healthy young lungs. But her heart it is another's. She never can be mine. And then hero and confidant would laugh each at his drawing table, Miss Ethel went between the two gentlemen by the name of Alice Gray. Very likely, Knight, the Gray mentor, had given Clive Newcomb the benefit of his sad counsel. Poor Belsize's agony, and the wretchedness of the young lady who shared in the desperate passion, may have set our young man a-thinking, and Lord Q.'s frankness and courage and honor, whereof Clive had been a witness during the night, Touched his heart with a generous admiration, and manned him for a trial which he felt was indeed severe.
He thought of the dear old father plowing the seas on the way to his duty, and was determined by Heaven's help to do his own. Only three weeks since, when strolling careless about Bonn, he had lighted upon Ethel and the laughing group of little cousins. He was a boy as they were. Thinking but of the enjoyment of the day in the sunshine, as careless as those children. And now the thoughts and passions, which had sprung up in a week or two, had given him an experience such as years do not always furnish. And our friend was to show not only that he could feel love in his heart, but that he could give proof of courage and self-denial and honor. Do you remember J.J., says he? as boots and breeches went plunging into the portmanteau, and with immense energy he pummels down one upon the other.
Do you remember? A dig into the snowy bosom of a dress, cambered shirt. My dear old father's only campaign story of his running away. A frightful blow into the ribs of a waistcoat. Running away at Assia Gore. Assia what? says J.J., wondering. The Siege of Asiogor, says Clive, fought in the eventful year, 1803. Lieutenant Newcomb, who has very neat legs, let me tell you, which also he has imparted to his descendants, had put on a new pair of leather breeches, for he likes to go handsomely dressed into action. His horse was shot, the enemy were upon him, and the governor had to choose between death and retreat. I have heard his brother officers say that my dear old father was the bravest man they ever knew.
The coolest hand, sir. What do you think it was Lieutenant Newcomb's duty to do under these circumstances? To remain alone as he was, his troop having turned about, and to be got down by the Monrata horsemen? To perish or to run, sir? I know which I should have done, says Ridley. Exactly. Lieutenant Newcomb adopted that course. His brand-new leather breeches were exceedingly tight, and greatly incommoded the rapidity of his retreating movement. But he ran away, sir, and afterwards begot your obedient servant. That is the history of the Battle of Asiagore. And now for the morrow, says J.J., not a little amused. J.J., old boy, this is my Battle of Asiagore. I am off. Dip into the money-bag. Pay the people.
Be generous, J. J., but not too prodigal. The chambermaid is ugly. Yet let her not want for a crown to console her at our departure. The waiters have been brisk and servile. Reward the slaves for their labors. Forget not the humble boots. So shall he bless us when we depart. For artists are gentlemen. Though Ethel does not think so. D. No. God bless her. God bless her, groans out Clive, cramming his two fists into his eyes. If Ridley admired him before, he thought none the worse of him now. And if any generous young fellow in life reads the fable, which may possibly concern him, let him take a senior's counsel and remember that there are perils in our battle. God help us, from which the bravest had best run away.
Early as the morning was, Clive had a visitor, and the door opened to let in Lord Q's honest face. Ridley retreated before it into his own den. The appearance of earl scared the modest painter, though he was proud and pleased that his Clive should have their company. Lord Q indeed lived in more splendid apartments on the first floor of the hotel. Clive and his friend, occupying a couple of spacious chambers on the second story. "'You are an early bird,' says Q. I got up myself in a panic before daylight almost. Jack was making a deuce of a row in his room, and fit to blow the door out. I have been coaxing him for this hour. I wish we had thought of giving him a dose of laudanum last night. If it finished him, poor old boy, it would do him no harm.' And then laughing, he gave Clive an account of his interview with Barnes on the previous night.
You seem to be packing up to go, too, says Lord Q, with a momentary glance of humor darting from his keen eyes. The weather is breaking up here, and if you are going to cross the St. Goddard, as the Newcombs told me, the sooner the better. It's bitter cold over the mountains in October. Very cold, says Clive, biting his nails. Post or vet? asked my lord. I bought a carriage at Frankfurt, says Clive, in an off-hand manner. Hello! cries the other, who was perfectly kind, and entirely frank and pleasant, and showed no difference in his conversation with men of any degree, except, perhaps, that to his inferiors in station he was a little more polite than to his equals. But who would as soon I only gave twenty pounds for the carriage.
It's a little light thing. We are two. A couple of horses carry us in our traps, you know. And we can stop where we like. I don't depend upon my profession, Clive added, with a blush. I made three guineas once, and that is the only money I ever gained in my life. Of course, my dear fellow. Have I not been to your father's house, at that pretty ball, and seen no end of fine people there? We are young swells. I know that very well. We only paint for pleasure. We are artists, and we intend to paint for money, my lord, says Clive. Will your lordship give me an order? My lordship serves me right, the other said. I think Newcomb. As you are going, I think you might do some folks here a good turn, though the service is rather a disagreeable one.
Jack Belsize is not fit to be left alone. I can't go away from here just now for reasons of state. Do be a good fellow, and take him with you. Put the alps between him and this confounded business, and if I can serve you in any way, I shall be delighted, if you will furnish me with the occasion." Jack does not know yet that our amiable Barnes is here. I know how fond you are of him. I have heard the story. Glass of Claret and all. We all love Barnes. How that poor Lady Clara can have accepted him, the Lord knows. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, especially women. Good heavens, Clive broke out. Can it be possible that a young creature can have been brought to like such a selfish, insolent coxcomb as that?
Such a cocktail as Barnes Newcomb? You know very well, Lord Q, what his life is. There was a poor girl whom he brought out of a Newcomb factory when he was a boy himself. And might have had a heart one would have thought, whom he ill-treated, whom he deserted, and flung out of doors without a penny, upon some pretense of her infidelity towards him, who came and actually sat down on the steps of Park Lane, with a child on each side of her, and not their cries and their hunger, but the fear of his own shame and a dread of a police court, forced him to give her a maintenance. I never see the fellow, but I loathe him, and long to kick him out of window, and this man is to marry a noble young lady, because, forsooth, he is a partner in a bank, and heir to seven or eight thousand a year.
Oh, it is a shame. It is a shame. It makes me sick when I think of the lot, which the poor thing is to endure. It is not a nice story," said Lord Q, rolling a cigarette. Barnes is not a nice man. I give you that in. You have not heard it talked about in the family, have you? Good heavens! You don't suppose that I would speak to Ethel, to Miss Newcomb, about such a foul subject as that, cries Clive. I never mentioned it to my own father. He would have turned Barnes out of his doors if he had known it. It was the talk about town I know, Q said dryly. Everything is told in those confounded clubs. I told you I'd give up Barnes. I like him no more than you do. He may have treated the woman ill. I suspect he has not an angelical temper.
But in this manner he has not been so bad, so very bad as it would seem. The first step is wrong, of course. Those factory towns, that sort of thing, you know. Well, well, the commencement of the business is a sad one, but he is not the only sinner in London. He has declared on his honor to me when the matter was talked about, and he was coming on for election at Bays, and was as nearly as any man I ever knew in my life. He declared on his word that he only parted from poor Mrs. DeLacy, Mrs. DeLacy the devil used to call herself, because he found that she had served him, as such women will serve men. He offered to send his children to school in Yorkshire, rather a cheap school, but she would not part with them.
She made a scandal in order to get good terms, and she succeeded. He was anxious to break the connection. He owned it, had hung like a millstone round his neck, and caused him a great deal of remorse. Annoyance, you may call it. He was immensely caught up about it. I remember when that young fellow was hanged for murdering a woman. Barnes said he did not wonder at his having done it. Young men make those connections in their early lives, and rue them all their days after. He was heartily sorry that we may take for granted. He wished to lead a proper life. My grandmother managed his business with the Dorkings. Lady Q still pulls Strokor in our boat. You know, and the old woman will not give up her place.
They know everything the elders do. He is a clever fellow. He is witty in his way. When he likes, he can make himself quite agreeable to some people. There has been no sort of force. You don't suppose young ladies are confined in dungeons and subject to tortures, do you? But there is a brood of Poulaines at Chanticleer. And old Dorkin has nothing to give them. His daughter accepted Barnes of her own free will, he knowing perfectly well of that previous affair with Jack. The poor devil burst into the place yesterday, and the girl drops down in a faint. She will see Belsize this very day if he likes. I took a note from Lady Dorkin to him at five o'clock this morning. If he fancies that there is any constraint put upon Lady Clara's actions, she will tell him with her own lips that she has acted of her own free will.
She will marry the husband she has chosen, and do her duty by him. You are quite a young'un who boil and froth up with indignation at the idea that a girl hardly off with an old love should take on with the new. "'I am not indignant with her,' says Clive, "'for breaking with spell size, "'but for marrying Barnes. "'You hate him, and you know he is your enemy. "'And indeed, young fellow, "'he does not compliment you when talking about you. "'A pretty young scapegrace, "'he has made you out to be, "'and very likely thinks you to be. "'It depends on the colors in which your fellow is painted.'" Our friends and our enemies draw us, and I often think both pictures alike," continued the easy world philosopher.
You hate Barnes, and cannot see any good in him. He sees none in you. There have been tremendous shindies in Park Lane, apropos of your worship, and of a subject which I don't care to mention," said Lord Q. with some dignity. And what is the upshot of all this malevolence? I like you. I like your father. I think he is a noble old boy. There are those who represented him as a sordid schemer. Give Mr. Barnes the benefit of common charity at any rate, and let others like him, if you do not. And as for this romance of love, the young nobleman went on, kindling as he spoke, and forgetting the slang and colloquialisms with which we garnish all our conversation. This fine picture of Jenny and Jessamy falling in love at first sight, billing and cooing in an arbor, and retiring to a cottage afterwards to go on cooing and billing.
Pshaw! What folly is this? It is good for romances, and for missus to sigh about. But any man who walks through the world with his eyes open knows how senseless is all this rubbish. I don't say that a young man and woman are not to meet, and to fall in love that instant, and to marry that day year, and love each other till they are a hundred. That is the supreme lot. But that is the lot which the gods only grant to Borsus and Philemon, and a very, very few besides. As for the rest, They must compromise, make themselves as comfortable as they can, and take the good and the bad together. And as for Jenny and Jessamy, by Jove, look round among your friends, count up the love matches, and see what has been the end of most of them.
Love in a cottage. Who is to pay the landlord for the cottage? Who is to pay for Jenny's tea and cream, and Jessamy's mutton chops? If he has cold mutton, he will quarrel with her. If there is nothing in the cupboard, a pretty meal they make. No, you cry out against people in our world making money marriages. Why, kings and queens marry on the same understanding. My butcher has saved a stockingful of money, and marries his daughter to a young salesman. Mr. and Mrs. Salesman prosper in life, and get an alderman's daughter for their son. My attorney looks out amongst his clients for an eligible husband for misdeeds, sends his son to the bar, into Parliament, where he cuts a figure and becomes attorney general, makes a fortune, has a house in Belgrave Square, and marries misdeeds of the second generation to a peer.
Do not accuse us of being more sordid than our neighbors. We do but as the world does, and a girl in our society accepts the best party, which offers itself, just as Miss Chummy, when entreated by two young gentlemen of the order of costermongers, inclines to the one who rides from market on a moak, rather than to the gentleman who sells his greens from a hand-basket. This tirade, which his lordship delivered with considerable spirit, was intended, no doubt, to carry a moral for Clive's private hearing, and which, to do him justice, the youth was not slow to comprehend. The point was, young man, if certain persons of rank choose to receive you very kindly, who have but a comely face, good manners, and three or four hundred pounds a year, do not presume upon their good nature, Or indulge in certain ambitious hopes which your vanity may induce you to form.
Sail down the stream with the brass pots. Master earthen pot, but beware of coming too near. You are a nice young man, but there are prizes which are some too good for you, and are meant for your betters. And you might as well ask the Prime Minister for the next vacant garter as expect to wear on your breast such a star as Ethel Newcomb. Before Clive made his accustomed visit to his friends at the hotel opposite, the last great potentiary had arrived who was to take part in the Family Congress of Baden. In place of Ethel's flushing cheeks and bright eyes, Clive found on entering Lady Anne Newcomb's sitting room. The parchment-covered features and the well-known hooked beak are the old Countess of Q.
To support the glances from beneath the bushy black eyebrows on each side of that promontory was no pleasant matter. The whole family cowered under Lady Q's eyes and nose, and she ruled by force of them. It was only Ethel whom these awful features did not utterly subdue and dismay. Besides Lady Q, Clive had the pleasure of finding his lordship, her grandson, Lady Anne and children of various sizes, and Mr. Barnes, not one of whom was the person whom Clive desired to behold. The quick glance in Q's eye, directed towards Clive, who was himself not by any means deficient in perception, informed him that there had just been a conversation in which his own name had figured. Having been abusing Clive extravagantly, as he did whenever he mentioned his cousin's name, Barnes must needs hang his head when the young fellow came in.
His hand was yet on the chamber door, and Barnes was calling his miscreant and scoundrel within. So no wonder Barnes had a hang-dog look. But, as for Lady Q, that veteran diplomatist allowed no signs of discomfiture. or any other emotion, to display themselves on her ancient countenance. Her bushy eyebrows were groves of mystery. Her unfathomable eyes were wells of gloom. She gratified Clive by a momentary loan of two knuckly old fingers, which he was at liberty to hold or to drop. And then he went on to enjoy the felicity of shaking hands with Mr. Barnes, who, observing and enjoying his confusion over Lady Q.'s reception, determined to try Clive in the same way, and he gave Clive at the same time a supercilious how-de-do, which the other would have liked to drive down his throat.
A constant desire to throttle Mr. Barnes, to beat him on the nose, to send him flying out of window, was a sentiment with which this singular young man inspired many persons whom he accosted. A biographer ought to be impartial, yet I own, in a modified degree, to have partaken of this sentiment. He looked very much younger than his actual time of life, and was not of commanding stature. But patronized his equals, nay, let us say, his betters, so insufferably that a common wish for his suppression existed amongst many persons in society. Clive told me of this little circumstance, and I am sorry to say of his own subsequent ill behavior. We were standing apart from the ladies, so Clive narrated, when Barnes and I had our little passage of arms.
He had tried the finger business upon me before, and I had before told him either to shake hands or to leave it alone. You know the way in which the impudent little beggar stands astride and sticks his little feet out. I brought my heel well down on his confounded little varnished toe and gave it a scrunch, which made Mr. Barnes shriek out one of his loudest oaths. Gee, clumsy! Screamed out Barnes. Clive said in a low voice, I thought you only swore at women, Barnes. It is you that says things before women, Clive, cries his cousin, looking very furious. Mr. Clive lost all patience. In what company, Barnes, would you like me to say that I think you are a snob? Will you have it on the parade? Come out and I will speak to you.
Barnes can't go out on parade, cries Lady Q, bursting out laughing. There's another gentleman there wanting him. And two of the three young men enjoyed this joke exceedingly. I doubt whether Barnes Newcomb, Newcomb Esq. of Newcomb, was one of the persons amused. What wickedness are you three boys laughing at, cries Lady Anne, perfectly innocent and good-natured. "'No good, I will be bound. Come here, Clive.' Our young friend, it must be premised, had no sooner received the thrust of Lady Q.'s two fingers on entering than it had been intimated to him that his interview with that gracious lady was at an end. For she had instantly called her daughter to her, with whom her ladyship fell a-whispering.
And then it was that Clive retreated from Lady Q's hand to fall into Barnes's. Clive trod on Barnes's toe, cries out cheery Lord Q, and has hurt Barnes's favorite corn, so that he cannot go out, and is actually obliged to keep the room. That's what we were laughing at. Ham growled Lady Q. She knew to what her grandson alluded. Lord Q. had represented Jack Bell's size, and his thundering big stick in the most terrific colors to the family council. The joke was too good a one not to serve twice. Lady Anne, in her whispered conversation with the old countess, had possibly deprecated her mother's anger towards poor Clive, but when he came up to the two ladies, the younger took his hand with great kindness and said, "'My dear Clive, we are very sorry you are going.
You were of the greatest use to us on the journey. I am sure you have been uncommonly good-natured and obliging, and we shall all miss you very much.' Her gentleness smote the generous young fellow, and an emotion of gratitude towards her for being so compassionate to him in his misery caused his cheeks to blush and his eyes perhaps to moisten. Thank you, dear Aunt Sissy. You have been very good and kind to me. It is I that shall feel lonely, but it is quite time that I shall go to my work." Quite time, said the severe possessor of the Eagle Beak. Baden is a bad place for young men. They make acquaintances here of which very little could can come. They frequent the gambling tables, and live with the most disreputable French vicons.
We have heard of your goings-on, sir. It is a great pity that Colonel Newcomb did not take you with him to India. My dear Mama, cries Lady Anne, I am sure Clive has been a very good boy indeed. The old lady's morality put a stop to Clive's pathetic mood, and he replied with a great deal of spirit. Dear Lady Anne, you have always been very good, and kindness is nothing surprising from you. But Lady Q's advice, which I should not have ventured to ask, is an unexpected favor. My father knows the extent of the gambling transactions to which your ladyship was pleased to allude, and introduced me to the gentleman whose acquaintance you don't seem to think eligible. My good young man, I think it is time you are off, Lady Q said, this time with great good humor.
She liked Clive's spirit. And as long as he interfered with none of her plans, was quite disposed to be friendly with him. Go to Rome, go to Florence, go wherever you like, and study very hard, and make very good pictures, and come back again, and we shall all be very glad to see you. You have very great talents. These sketches are really capital." "'It is naughty, very clever, Mama,' said kind Lady Anne eagerly. Clive felt the pathetic mood coming on again, and an immense desire to hug Lady Anne in his arms and to kiss her. How grateful we are! How touched a frank and generous heart is for a kind word extended to us in our pain. The pressure of a tender hand nerves a man for an operation and cheers him for the dreadful interview with the surgeon.
That cool old operator who had taken Mr. Clive's case in hand now produced her shining knife and executed the first cut with perfect neatness and precision. "'Will you come here, as I suppose you know, Mr. Newcomb, upon family matters, and I frankly tell you that I think, for your own sake, you would be much better away. I wrote my daughter a great scolding when I heard that you were in this place.' "'But it was by the merest chance, Mama. Indeed it was,' cries Lady Anne. "'Of course, by the merest chance, and by the merest chance, I heard of it, too. A little bird came and told me at Kinsingen. "'You have no more sense, Anne, than a goose. I have told you so a hundred times. Lady Anne requested you to stay, and I, my good young friend, request you to go away.'" I needed no requests, said Clive.
My going, Lady Q, is my own act. I was going without requiring any guide to show me to the door. No doubt you were, and my arrival is the signal for Mr. Nookum's bonjour. I am Bogey, and I frighten everybody away. By the scene which you witnessed yesterday, My good young friend, and all that painful as Klander on the Parmenade, you must see how absurd and dangerous and wicked, yes wicked it is, for parents to allow intimacies to spring up between young people, which can only lead to disgrace and unhappiness. Lady Dorkin was another good-natured goose. I had not arrived yesterday ten minutes, when my maid came running in to tell me of what had occurred on the Parmenade. And tired as I was, I went that instant to Jane Dorking and passed the evening with her, and that poor little creature to whom Captain Belsize behaved so cruelly.
She does not care a fig for him. Not one fig. Her childish incarnation is passed away these two years, whilst Mr. Jack was performing his feats in prison, and if the wretch flatters himself that it was on his account she was agitated yesterday, he is perfectly mistaken, and you may tell him Lady Q said so. She is subject to fainting fits. Dr. Fink has been attending her ever since she has been here. She fainted only last Tuesday, at the sight of a rat walking about their lodgings. They have dreadful lodgings, the Dawkins. And no wonder she was frightened at the sight of their great coarse, tipsy wretch. She is engaged, as you know, to your connection, my grandson, Barnes. In all respects, a most eligible union.
The rank of life of the parties suits them to one another. She is a good young woman. And Barnes has experienced from persons of another sort such horrors that he will know the blessing of domestic virtue. It was high time, he should. I say all this in perfect frankness to you. Go back again and play in the garden, little brats. This to the innocents who came frisking in from the lawn in front of the windows. You have been? And Barnes sent you in here? Go up to Miss Quigley. No, stop. Go and tell Ethel to come down. Bring her down with you. Do you understand?" The unconscious infants toddle upstairs to their sister, and Lady Q blandly says, Ethel's engagement to my grandson, Lord Q, has long been settled in our family, though these things are best not talked about until they are quite determined, you know, my dear Mr.
Newcomb. When we saw you and your father in London, We heard that you, too, that you, too, were engaged to a young lady in your own rank of life, a miss—what was her name? Miss McPherson. Miss McKenzie. Your aunt, Mrs. Hobson Newcomb, who I must say is a most blundering silly person, had said about this story, it appears there is no truth in it. Do not look surprised that I know about your affairs. I am an old witch. and known numbers of things. And, indeed, how Lady Q came to know this fact, whether her maid corresponded with Lady Anne's maid, whether ladyship's means of information were, avowed or occult, this biography has never been able to ascertain. Very likely Ethel, who in these last three weeks had been made aware of that interesting circumstance, had announced it to Lady Q in the course of a cross-examination, and there may have been a battle between the granddaughter and the grandmother, of which the family chronicler of the Newcombs has had no precise knowledge, that there were many such, I know, skirmishes, sieges, and general engagements.
When we hear the guns and see the wounded, we know there has been a fight. Who knows had there been a battle royal, and was Miss Newcomb having her wounds dressed upstairs? You would like to say good-bye to your cousin, I know, Lady Q continued, with imperturbable placidity. Ethel, my dear, here is Mr. Clive Newcomb, who has come to bid us all good-bye. The little girls came trotting down at this moment, each holding a skirt of their oldest sister. She looked rather pale. But her expression was haughty, almost fierce. Clive rose up as she entered, from the sofa by the old countess's side, which place she had pointed him to take during the amputation. He rose up and put his hair back off his face, and said very calmly, "'Yes, I'm come to say good-bye.
My holidays are over, and Ridley and I are off for Rome. Good-bye, and God bless you, Ethel.'" She gave him her hand and said, "'Goodbye, Clive,' but her hand did not return his pressure and dropped to her side when he let it go. Hearing the words goodbye, little Alice burst into a howl, and little Maud, who was an impetuous little thing, stamped her little red shoes and said, "'It isn't B. Goodbye. Clive can't go.'" Alice, roaring, clung hold of Clive's trousers. He took them up gaily, each on an arm, as he had done a hundred times, and tossed the children onto his shoulders, where they used to like to pull his yellow mustachios. He kissed little hands and faces, and a moment after was gone.
"'Cue us, too,' said Monsieur de Florac, meeting him going over the bridge to his own hotel. "'Cue us, too!' Mon petit clave, et si convient de tracher une dente. C'est ça, says Clive, and walked into the Hotel de France. Hello, J.J., Ridley, he sang out. Order the trap out, and let's be off. I thought we were not to march till tomorrow, says J.J., divining perhaps that some catastrophe had occurred. Indeed, Mr. Clive was going a day sooner than he had intended. He woke at Fribourg the next morning. It was the grand old cathedral he looked at. Not Baden of the Pineclad Hills are the pretty walks in the Limetree Avenues. Not Baden, the prettiest booth of all Vanity Fair. The crowds and the music, the gambling tables and the cadaverous croupiers and clinking gold, were far out of sight and hearing.
There was one window at the Hotel de Hollande that he thought of, how a fair arm used to open it in the early morning, how the Muslim curtain in the morning air swayed to and fro. He would have given how much to see it once more. Walking about at Freiburg in the night, away from his companions, he had thought of ordering horses, galloping back to Barton, and once again under that window, calling Ethel, Ethel. But he came back to his room in the quiet J.J., and the poor Jack Belsize, who had had his tooth taken out, too. We had almost forgotten Jack. Who took a back seat in Clive's carriage, as befits a secondary personage in this history. And Clive, in truth, had almost forgotten him, too. But Jack, having his own cares and business, and having rammed his own carpet bag, brought it down without a word.
And Clive found him environed in smoke when he came down to take his place in the little Britska. I wonder whether the window at the Hotel de Haaland saw him go. There are some curtains behind which no historian, however prying, is allowed to peep. "'Tiens, le petit part,' said Fleurac of the cigar, who was always sauntering. "'Yes, we go,' says Clive. "'There is a fourth place, Vincont. Will you come, too?' "'I would love it well,' replies Fleurac. "'But I am here in faction.'" My cousin and seigneur, Monsieur Le Duc de Viver, is coming all the way from Bagnéz de Béjord. He says he counts on me. Affairs mon cher, affairs de tarte. How pleased the Duchess will be. Easy with that bag, shouts Clive.
How pleased the Princess will be. In truth, he hardly knew what he was saying. Vous croyez, vous croyez, says Monsieur de Florac. As you have a fourth place, I know who had best take it." And who is that?" asked the young traveler. Lord Q and Barnes Esquire of Newcomb came out of the Hotel de Holland at this moment. Barnes slunk back, seeing Jack Belsize's hairy face. Q ran over the bridge. Good-bye, Clive. Good-bye, Jack. Good-bye, Q. It was a great handshake. Away goes the postillion, blowing his horn, and young Hannibal has left Capua behind him.
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31 31 - Chapter 31: Madame la Duchesse 38:37
as his wont was, a great lady to whom he was presented at that watering-place by his friend, Lord Q. Lord Q had traveled in the East with Monsieur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse, d'Ivry, the Prince being an old friend of his lordship's family. He is the Q of Madame de Vries' book of travels, Footprints of the Gazelles, by a daughter of the Crusaders, in which she prays so fervently for Lord Q's conversion. He is the Q who rescued the princess from the Arabs, and performed many a feat which lives in her glowing pages. He persists in saying that he never rescued Madame la Princess from any Arabs at all. Except for one beggar, who was bawling out for Baksheesh, and whom Q drove away with a stick.
They made pilgrimages to all the holy places, and a piteous sight it was, said Lord Q, to see the old prince in the Jerusalem processions at Easter pacing with bare feet and a candle. Here, Lord Q, separated from the prince's party, His name does not occur in the last part of the footprints, which, in truth, are filled full of strange rhapsodies, adventures which nobody was but the princess, and mystic disquisitions. She hesitates at nothing. Like other poets of her nation, not profoundly learned, she invents where she has not acquired. Mingles together religion and the opera. and performs Parisian pas de valet before the gates of monasteries and the cells of anchorites. She describes, as if she had herself witnessed the catastrophe, the passage of the Red Sea, and, as if there were no doubt of the transaction, an unhappy love affair between Pharaoh's eldest son and Moses' daughter.
At Cairo, apropos of Joseph's granaries, she enters into a furious tirade against Putafar, whom she paints as an old savage, suspicious, and a tyrant. They generally have a copy of the footprints of the gazelles at the circulating library at Baden, as Madame de Vries constantly visits that watering-place. Monsieur le Duc was not pleased with the book, which was published entirely without his concurrence, and which he described as one of the ten thousand follies of Madame la Duchesse. This nobleman was five and forty years older than his Duchess. France is the country with that sweet Christian institution of mariage de confidence. Which so many folks of the family about which this story treats are engaged in arranging, is most in vogue.
There, the newspapers daily announce that Monsieur Defoy has a bureau de confiance, where families may arrange marriages for their sons and daughters in perfect comfort and security. It is but a question of money on one side and the other. Mademoiselle has so many francs of dot. Monsieur has such and such rents or lands in possession or reversion. En a two, d'avouer, a shop with a certain clientele, bringing him such and such an income, which may be doubled by the judicious addition of so much capital. And the pretty little matrimonial arrangement is concluded, the agent touching his percentage, or broken off, and nobody unhappy, and the world None the wiser. The consequences of this system I do not pretend personally to know.
But if the light literature of a country is a reflex of its manners, and French novels are the picture of French life, a pretty society, must that be, into the midst of which the London reader may walk in twelve hours from this time of perusal, and from which only twenty miles of seas separate us. When the old Duke d'Evry, of the ancient, ancient nobility of France, an emigrant with Artois, a warrior with Condé, an exile during the reign of the Corsican usurper, a grand prince, a great nobleman afterwards, though shorn of nineteenth-twentieths of his wealth by the Revolution, when the Duke d'Evry lost his two sons, and his son's son likewise died, As if fate had determined to end the direct line of that noble house, which had furnished queens to Europe, and renowned chiefs to the Crusaders.
Being of an intrepid spirit, the Duke was ill-disposed to yield to his redoubtable energy, in spite of the cruel blows which the latter had inflicted upon him. And when he was more than sixty years of age, three months before the July Revolution broke out, a young lady of a sufficient nobility, a virgin of sixteen, was brought out of the convent of the Sacre-Cœur at Paris, and married with immense splendor and ceremony to this princely widower.
The most august names signed the book of the civil marriage. Madame Le Dauphin and Madame La Duchesse de Berry complimented the young bride with royal favors. Her portrait by Dubuff was in the exhibition next year. A charming young duchess, indeed, with black eyes and bright ringlets, pearls on her neck, and diamonds in her hair, as beautiful as a princess of a fairy tale. Monsieur D'Evry, Whose early life may have been rather outrageous, was yet a gentleman perfectly well-conserved. Resolute against fate his enemy, one would fancy fate was of an aristocratic turn, and took special delight in combats with princely houses. The Atreides, the Bourbonite, the Deverys, the Browns and Joneses being of no account.
The prince seemed to be determined not only to secure a progeny, but to defy age. At sixty he was still young, or seemed to be so. His hair was as black as the princess's own, his teeth as white. If you saw him on the Boulevard de Gande, sunning among the youthful exquisites there, or riding au bois with a grace worthy of old Franconi himself, You would take him for one of the young men, of whom, indeed, up to his marriage, he retained a number of the graceful follies and amusements, though his manners had a dignity acquired in old days of Versailles and the Trianon, which the moderns cannot hope to imitate. He was as assiduous behind the scenes of the opera as any journalist, or any young dandy of twenty years.
He ranged himself, as the French phrase is, shortly before his marriage, just like any other young bachelor, took leave of Fernie and Espasi in the Colosses, and proposed to devote himself henceforth to his charming young wife. The Efrure catastrophe of July arrived. The ancient Bourbons were once more on the road to exile, Save one wildly old remnant of the race, who rode grinning over the barricades and distributing Poigny-Dermaine to the stout fist that had pummeled his family out of France. Monsieur Le Duc d'Ivry, who lost his place at court, his appointments which helped his income very much, and his peerage would no more acknowledge the usurfer of Neuilly than him of Elba. The ex-peer retired to his terrace.
He barricaded his house in Paris against all supporters of the citizen king. His nearest kinsman, Monsieur de Florac among the rest, who for his part cheerfully took his oath of fidelity and his seat in Louis-Philippe's house of peers, having indeed been accustomed to swear to all dynasties for some years past. In due time, Madame la Duchesse d'Evry gave birth to a child, a daughter, whom her noble father received with but small pleasure. What the Duke desired was an heir to his name, a prince of Montcourteur, to fill the place of the sons and grandsons gone before him, to join their ancestors in the tomb. No more children, however, blessed the old Duke's union. Madame D'Vry went the round of all the watering places.
Pilgrimages were tried. Vows and gifts to all saints supposed to be favorable to the D'Vry family, or to families in general. But the saints turned a deaf ear. They were inexorable, since the true religion and the elder Bourbons were banished from France. Living by themselves in their ancient castles, or their dreary mansion of the Faubourg-Saint-Germain, I suppose the duke and duchess grew tired of one another, as persons who enter into a mirage, their confidence, sometimes, nay, as those who light a flaming love match, and run away with one another, will be found to do. A lady of one and twenty. And a gentleman of sixty-six, alone in a great castle, have not unfrequently a third guest at their table, who comes without a card, and whom they cannot shut out, though they keep their doors closed ever so.
His name is Ennui, and many a long hour and weary night must such folks pass in the unbidden society of this old man of the sea. This dearly guest at the board, this watchful attendant at the fireside, this assiduous companion who will walk out with you, this sleepless, restless bedfellow. At first, Monsieur D'Evry, that well-conserved nobleman, who never would allow that he was not young, exhibited no sign of doubt regarding his own youth, except an extreme jealousy in avoidance of all other young fellows. Very likely, Madame la Duchesse may have thought men in general dyed their hair, wore stays, and had the rheumatism. Coming out of the convent of the Sacré-Cœur, how was the innocent young lady to know better?
You see, in these mariages de confedants, though a coronet may be convenient to a beautiful young creature, and a beautiful young creature may be convenient to an old gentleman. There are articles which the marriage monger cannot make to convene at all, tempers over which Monsieur de Foix and his like have no control, and tastes which cannot be put into the marriage settlements. So this couple were unhappy, and the Duke and Duchess quarrelled with one another like the most vulgar pair who ever fought across a table. In this unhappy state of home affairs, Madame took to literature, Monsieur to politics. She discovered that she was a great, unappreciated soul, and when a woman finds that treasure in her bosom, of course she sets her own price on the article.
Did you ever see the first poems of Madame la Duchesse d'Evry? Les cris d'élan. She used to read them to her very intimate friends, in white, with her hair a good deal down her back. They had some success, de Booth having painted her as a duchess. Schaeffer depicted her as a muse. That was in the third year of her marriage, when she rebelled against the duke, her husband, insisted on opening her saloons to art and literature. And a fervent devotee still, proposed to unite genius and religion. Poets had interviews with her. Musicians came and twanged guitars to her. Her husband, entering her room, would fall over the saver and spurs of Count Almariva from the boulevard, or Don Basilio, with his great sombrero and shoe-buckles.
The old gentleman was breathless and bewildered in following her through all her vagaries. He was of old France, she of new. What did he know of the Ecole Romantique, and the Gurgens, which there Marie tutors and tours der Nessel? Insanguineous histories of queens who sewed their lovers into sex, emperors who had interviews with robber captains in Charlemagne's tube, Buridens and Hermione's, and stuff. M. Lecomte de Chateaubriand was a man of genius as a writer, certainly immortal, and M. de Lamantine was a young man extremely bien-pensant. But ma foi, give him crée bien-fice, or a bonne farce of M. Veyde to make laugh, for the great sentiments, for the beautiful style, give him M. de Lomagne, although Bonapartist.
Or Ave Delilah. And for the new school, bah, these little Dumas's and Hugo's and Bosset's. What is all that? Monsieur de Lomian should be immortal, Monsieur, he would say, when all these frelicates are forgotten. After his marriage, he frequented the coulisses of the opera no more, but he was a pretty constant attendant at Titiata Frances. Where you might hear him snoring over the chef-d'oeuvres of French tragedy. For some little time after 1830, the Duchess was as great a carlist as her husband could wish, and they conspired together very comfortably at first. Of an adventurous turn, eager for excitement of all kinds, nothing would have better pleased the Duchess than to follow Madame in her adventurous courses in La Verdie.
disguised as a boy above all. She was persuaded to stay at home, however, and aid the good cause at Paris, while Monsieur Le Duc went off to Brittany to offer his old sword to the mother of his king. But Madame was discovered of the chimney at Rennes, and all sorts of things were discovered afterwards. The world said that our silly little Duchess of Paris was partly the cause of the discovery. Spies were put upon her, and to some people she would tell anything. Monsieur le Duc, on paying his annual visit to Auguste Exiles at Goritz, was very badly received. Madame le Dauphin gave him a sermon. He had an awful quarrel with Madame la Duchesse on returning to Paris. He provoked Monsieur le Comte Tercelin, le beau Tercelin.
An officer of ordonnance of the Duke of Orleans into a duel, apropos of a cup of coffee in a salon. He actually wounded the beau Tierselin. He's sixty-five years of age. His nephew, Monsieur de Florac, was loud in praise of his kinsman's bravery. That pretty figure in complexion, which still appears so captivating in Monsieur Dubuff's portrait of Madame la Duchess d'Evry, have long existed. It must be owned only in paint.
The Viscount de Florac said of his cousin, she should get her blushers from Monsieur Dubuff. Those of her present furnishers are not near so natural. Sometimes the Duchess appeared with these postish roses, sometimes of a mortal paleness. Sometimes she looked plump, on other occasions woefully thin. When she goes into the world, said the same chronicler, ma cousine surrounds herself with jupon. C'est pour de vendre, so vautou. When she is in a devotional mood, she gives up rouge, roast meat, and crinoline.
Despite the duke her husband, she took up with the vicomte de Florac, and to please herself she cast him away. She took his brother, the abbé de Florac, for a director, and presently parted from him. Mon frère, sur Saint-Anne ne parle jamais de Madame la Duchesse maintenant, said the vicomte. She must have confessed to him des choses affreuses. Oui.
The Duke d'Ivry became archi-realist. Madame la Duchess must make herself ultra-philippista. Oh, oui. Tu ce qu'il a de plus, Madame Adelaide au monde, cried Florac. She were foals of Monsieur le Regent. She used to keep a fast of the day at the sub-place A Philippe Egalité, saint and martyr. I say used, for to make to enrage her husband and to recall the abbey my brother, did she not advise herself to consult Monsieur le Pastor Grigouge, and to attend the preach at his temple. When this sheep had brought her shepherd back, she dismissed the Pastor Grigouge. Then she tired of Monsieur l'abbé again. And my brother has come out from her, shaking his good head. Ah, she must have put things into it which astonished the good Abby.
You know, he has since taken the Dominican robe. My word of honor. I believe it was terror of her that drove him into a convent. You shall see him at Rome, Clive. Give him news of his elder, and tell him this gross prodigal is repenting amongst the swine. My word of honor. I desire but the death of Madame la Valcontis de Florac to marry and range myself. After being a royalist, philippist, catholic, Huguenot, Madame d'Ivry must take to pantheism, to bearded philosophers who believe in nothing, not even in clean linen, eclecticism, republicanism. What know I? All her changes have been chronicled by books of her composition. Les Demons, Poem Catholic, Charles IX, is the hero, and the demons are shot, for the most part, at the catastrophe of St.
Bartholomew. My good mother, all good Catholic as she is, was startled by the boldness of this doctrine. Then there came une draconade, par Madame la Dachesse d'Evry. Which is all on your side. That was the time of the Pas de Grigieux, that one. The last, W'lez du Dichoux. Poème en 20 chance. Pas Madame la Dixie d'Aix. Guard yourself well from this muse. If she takes a fancy to you, she will never leave you alone. If you see her often, she will fancy you are in love with her and tell her husband. She always tells my uncle, afterwards, after she has quarreled with you and grown tired of you. Eh? Being in London once, she had the idea to make herself a cacher, wore the costume, consulted a minister of that cult, and quarreled with him as of rule.
It appears the Quakers do not beat themselves. Otherwise, my poor uncle must have paid of his person. The turn of the philosophers then came. The chemists, the natural historians, but no eye. She made a laboratory in her hotel, and rehearsed poisons like Madame de Brinvilliers. She spent hours in the Jardin des Plants. Since she has grown, after a Zemont Negra, and wears mounting robes, she has taken more than ever to the idea that she resembles Mary, Queen of Scots. She wears a little frill and a little cap. Every man she loves, she says, has come to misfortune. She calls her lodgings, Loc Levin. Eh, I pity the landlord of Loc Levin. She calls, Sécrose Blockball, vous savez, that pillar of Estamonnets, that prince of Mauvais-Ton, her Bothwell.
Little Migeau, the poor little pianist, she named her Rizzio. Young Lord Greenhorn, who was here with Governor, a Monsieur of Oxford. She christened her Darnley, and the Minister Anglican, her John Knox. The poor man was quite enchanted. Beware of this haggard siren, my little Clive. Mistrust her dangerous song. Her cave is Jean Chez, with the bones of her victims. Be you not one. Far from causing Clive to avoid Madame la Duchesse, these cautions very likely would have made him only the more eager to make her acquaintance. But that, a much nobler attraction, drew him elsewhere. At first, being introduced to Madame de Vries Salon, he was pleased and flattered, and behaved himself there merrily and agreeably enough.
He had not studied Horace, for nay, for nothing. He drew a fine picture of Q, rescuing her from the Arabs, with a plenty of sabers, pistols, burnouses, and dromedaries. He made a pretty sketch of her little girl, Antoinette, and a wonderful likeness of Miss O'Grady, the little girl's governess, the mother dame, der Compagnie. Miss O'Grady was the richest Malaysian rogue who had been engaged. To give Antoinette the pure English accent. But the French lady's great eyes and painted smiles would not bear comparison with Ethel's natural brightness and beauty. Clive, who had been appointed painter and ordinary to the Queen of Scots, neglected his business and went over to the English faction. So did one or two more of the princess's followers.
Leaving Her Majesty by no means well pleased at their desertion. There had been many quarrels between Monsieur D'Evry and his next of kin. Political differences, private differences, a long story. The Duke, who had been wild himself, could not pardon the Vicon de Florac for being wild. Efforts at reconciliation had been made which ended unsuccessfully. The vicomte de Florac had been allowed for a brief space to be intimate with the chief of his family, and then had been dismissed for being too intimate. Right or wrong, the duke was jealous of all young men who approached the Duchess. "'He is suspicious,' Madame de Florac indignantly said, "'because he remembers, and he thinks other men are like himself.' The vicomte discreetly said, My cousin has paid me the compliment to be jealous of me, and acquiesced in his banishment with a shrug.
During the emigration, the old Lord Q had been very kind to exiles. Monsieur D'Evry amongst the number, and that nobleman was anxious to return all Lord Q's family when they came to France, the hospitality which he had received himself in England. He still remembered or professed to remember Lady Q's beauty. How many women are there, awful of aspect, at present, of whom the same pleasing legend is not narrated? It must be true, but do not they themselves confess it? I know of few things more remarkable or suggestive of philosophic contemplation than those physical changes. When the old duke and the old countess met together and talked confidentially, their conversation bloomed into a jargon wonderful to hear.
All scandals woke up, all naughtiness rose out of their graves, and danced and smirked and gibbered again, like those wicked nuns whom Bertram and Robert Le Dablis evoked from their sepulchres while the bassoon performs a diabolical incantation. The Brighton Pavilion was tenanted. Ranala and the Pantheon swarmed with dancers and masks. Perdita was found again and walked a Mrs. Clark and the Duke of Yolk danced together, a pretty dance. The old Duke were a jabot, and ailes de pijon. The old Countess a hoop. And a cushion on her head. If happily the young folks came in, the elders modified their recollections, and Lady Q brought honest old King George and good old ugly Queen Charlotte to the rescue.
Her ladyship was sister of the Marquis of Steyn, and in some respects resembled that lamented nobleman. Their family had relations in France. Lady Q had always a Pietre d'Eterre at Paris, a bitter little scandal shop, where Les Bions-Ponçons assembled and retell the most awful stories against the reigning dynasty. It was she who handed over Le Petit Q, when quite a boy, to Monsieur and Madame D'Evry, to be lancé into Parisian society. He was treated as the son of the family by the Duke. One of whose many Christian names, his lordship, Francis George Xavier, Earl of Kew, and Viscount Walham, bears. If Lady Kew hated anyone, and she could hate very considerably, she hated her daughter-in-law, Walham's widow, and the Methodist who surrounded her.
Kew remained among a pack of psalm-singing old women and parsons with his mother. Why don't? Frank was Lady Q's boy. She would form him, marry him, leave him her money if he married to her liking, and show him life. And so she showed it to him. Have you taken your children to the National Gallery in London and shown them the Mariage à la Mode? Was the artist exceeding the privilege of his calling in painting the catastrophe in which those guilty people all suffer? If this fable were not true, if many and many of your young men of pleasure had not acted it and rued the moral, I would tear the page. You know that in our nursery tales there is commonly a good fairy to counsel, and a bad one to mislead the young prince.
You perhaps feel that in your own life there is a good principle imploring you to come into its kind bosom, and a bad passion which tempts you into its arms. Be of easy mind, good-natured people. Let us disdain surprises and coup de teatro for once, and tell those good souls who are interested about him that there is a good spirit coming to the rescue of our young Lord Q. Surrounded by her court and royal attendance, Lorraine Marie used graciously to attend the play-table, where luck occasionally declared itself for and against Her Majesty. Her appearance used to create not a little excitement in the saloon of roulette, the game which he patronized, it being more fertile of emotions than the slower tronc et quarante.
She dreamed of numbers, had favorite incantations by which to conjure them, noted the figures made by peels of peaches, and so forth. The number of houses on hackney coaches were superstitious comme toutes les rimes politiques. She commonly brought a beautiful agate bonbonneur full of gold pieces when she played. It was wonderful to see her grimaces, to watch her behavior. Her appeals to heaven, her delight and despair. Madame la Baron de la Cruce-Casset played on one side of her, Madame la Corte de Schlagenbad on the other. When she had lost all her money, Her Majesty would condescend to borrow, not from those ladies. Knowing the royal peculiarity, they never had any money. They always lost.
They swiftly pocketed their winnings and never left a mass on the table, or quitted it, as courteous will, when they saw luck was going against their sovereign. The officers of her household were Count Punter, a Hanoverian, the Cavalier Sparta, Captain Blackball, of a mysterious English regiment, which might be any one of the hundred and twenty in the army list, and other noble men and gentlemen, Greeks, Russians, and Spaniards, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, of England, who had made the princesses acquaintance at Bagnres, where her lord still remained in the gout, and perseveringly followed her all the way to Baden, would dazzle by the splendor of the company in which they found themselves. Miss Jones wrote such letters to her dearest friend, Miss Thompson, Cambridge Square, London, as caused that young person to crever with envy.
Bob Jones, who had grown a pair of mustachios since he left home, began to think slightingly of poor little Fanny Thompson, now he had gotten into the best continental society. Might not he quarter a countess's coat on his brogram along with the Jones arms? Or more slap-up still, have the two shields painted on the panels with the coronet over. Do you know the princess calls herself the Queen of Scots? And she calls me Julian Avenel, says Jones, delighted, to Clive, who wrote me about the transmogrification of our schoolfellow, an attorney's son, whom I recollected, a snivelling little boy at Grey Fires. I say, Newcomb, the princess is going to establish an order, cried Bob in ecstasy. Every one of her aides-de-camp has a bunch of orders at his button, excepting, of course, poor Jones.
Like all persons who beheld her, when Miss Newcomb and her party made their appearance at Baden, Monsieur de Florac was enraptured with her beauty. I speak of it constantly before the Duchess. I know it pleases her," said the Viscount. You should have seen her looks when your friend Mr. Jones praised Miss Newcomb. She ground her teeth with fury. Tien, Sir, Petit, non-nois, d'eq. He always spoke of her as a mere sac d'argent that he was about to marry, an ingot of the Cité. Un fier de l'ordre marre. Have all English bankers such pearls of daughters? If the Vicondesse de Florac had but quitted the earth, don't elle fait l'unement. I would present myself to the Charmant-Mise and ride a stiflechase with Q.
That he should win it, the Vicomte never doubted. When Lady Anne Newcomb first appeared in the ballroom at Baden, Madame la Duchess D'Evry begged the Earl of Q. Notre-file, she called him, to present her to his aunt, Melody, and her charming daughter. My fillou had not prepared me for so much grace, she said, turning a look towards Lord Q, which caused his lordship some embarrassment. Her kindness and graciousness were extreme. Her caresses and compliments never ceased all the evening. She told the mother and the daughter, too, that she had never seen anyone so lovely as Ethel. Whenever she saw Lady Anne's children in the walk, she ran to them, so that Captain Blackball and Count Punter A.D.C.
were amazed at her tenderness. She etouffed them with kisses. What lilies and roses! What lovely little creatures! What companions for her own Antoinette! This is your governess, Miss Quigley, mademoiselle. You must let me present you to Miss O'Gridi, your compatriot, and I hope your children will always be together. The Irish Protestant governess scowled at the Irish Catholic. It was a buoying water between them. Little Antoinette, a lonely little girl, was glad to find any companions. Mama kisses me on the promenade, she told them in their artless way. She never kisses me at home. One day when Lord Q, with Florak and Clive, were playing with the children, Antoinette said, Pourquoi le venez-vous, monsieur le Q?
And why does Mama say you are a lache? She said so yesterday to say, Monsieur's. And why does Mama say thou art only a variant? Mon cousin, thou art always very good for me. I love thee better than all those messers. Matante Florac et t'est. Bon pour mon appareil aussi. Ah, quel était bon. S'est-ce que l'argent est mon bien le petit cherubin's. And my mother is an angel, seest thou, cries Florac, kissing her. Thy mother is not dead, said little Antoinette. Then why dost thou cry, my cousin? And the three spectators were touched by this little scene and speech. Lady Anne Newcomb received the caresses and compliments of Madame la Duchesse with marked coldness on the part of one commonly so very good-natured.
Ethel's instinct told her that there was something wrong in this woman, and she shrank from her with haughty reserve. The girl's conduct was not likely to please the French lady. But she never relaxed in her smiles and her compliments, her caresses, and her professions of admiration. She was present when Clara Poulain fell, and prodigal of culinaries and consolation, and shawls and scent bottles to the unhappy young lady, she would accompany her home. She inquired perpetually after the health of said pauvre petite Miss Clara. Oh, how she railed against the Angleses and their prudery. Can you fancy her in her circle? The tea table sat in the twilight that evening. The court assembled, Madame Le Cruciacasse and Madame Le Schlagenbad, and their whiskered, humbled servants, Baron Punter and Count Spada and Marquis Iago and Prince Ievcino, and were the Captain Black Ball.
Can you fancy a moonlight conclave, and ghouls feasting on the fresh corpse of a reputation, the jibes and sarcasms, the laughing and gnashing of teeth, how they tear the dainty limbs and relish the tender morsels? The air of this place is not good for you, believe me, my little Q. It is dangerous. Have pressing affairs in England. Let your chateau burn down. Or your intendant, run away and pursue him. Partez, mon petit Q, partez, or evil will come of it. Such was the advice which a friend of Lord Q gave the young nobleman.
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32 32 - Chapter 32: Barnes's Courtship 25:25
Barnes' Courtship. Ethel had made various attempts to become intimate with her future sister-in-law, had walked and ridden, and talked with Lady Clara before Barnes' arrival. She had come away not very much impressed with respectful Lady Clara's mental powers. Indeed, we have said that Miss Ethel was rather more prone to attack women than to admire them, and was a little hard upon the fashionable young persons of her acquaintance and sex. In after-life, care and thought subdued her pride, and she learned to look at society more good-naturedly. But at this time, and for some years after, she was impatient of commonplace people, and did not choose to conceal her scorn. Lady Clara was very much afraid of her.
Those timid little thoughts, which would come out, and frisk and gamble with pretty graceful antics, and advance confidingly at the sound of Jack Belsize's jolly voice, and nibbled crumbs out of his hand, shrank away before Ethel, severe nymph, with the bright eyes, and hid themselves under the thickets and in the shade. Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of lovers possibly, pouring out their little hearts, laughing at their own little jokes, prattling and prattling away unceasingly, until Mama appears with her awful didactic countenance, or the governess with her dry moralities, and the colloquy straightway ceases. The laughter stops. The chirp of the harmless little birds is hushed.
Lady Clara, being of a timid nature, stood in as much awe of Ethel as of her father and mother, whereas her little sister, a brisk young creature of seventeen, who was of the order of romps or tomboys, was by no means afraid of Miss Newcomb, and indeed a much greater favorite with her than her placid elder sister. Young ladies may have been crossed in love, and have had their sufferings, their frantic moments of grief and tears, their wakeful nights, and so forth. But it is only in very sentimental novels that people occupy themselves perpetually with that passion. And, I believe, what are called broken hearts are very rare articles indeed. Tom is jilted, is for a while in a dreadful state. Bores all his male acquaintance with his groans and his frenzy, rallies from the complaint, eats his dinner very kindly, takes an interest in the next turf event, and is found at Newmarket, as usual, bawling out the odds which he will give or take.
Miss has her paroxysm and recovery. Madame Crenolin's new importations from Paris interest the young creature. She deigns to consider whether pink or blue will become her most. She conspires with her maid to make the spring morning dresses answer for the autumn. She resumes her books, piano, and music, giving up certain songs perhaps that she used to sing. She waltzes with the captain, gets a collar, waltzes longer, better, and ten times quicker than Lucy, who is dancing with the major. Replies in an animated manner to the captain's delightful remarks, takes a little supper, and looks quite kindly at him before she pulls up the carriage windows. Clive may not like his cousin Barnes Newcomb, and many other men share in that antipathy, but all ladies do not.
It is the fact that Barnes, when he likes, can make himself a very pleasant fellow. He is dreadfully satirical, that is certain. But many persons are amused by those dreadful, satirical young men, and to hear fun made of our neighbors, even of some of our friends, does not make us very angry. Barnes is one of the best waltzers in all society. That is the truth. Whereas, it must be confessed, someone else was very heavy and slow. His great foot always crushing you, and he always begging your pardon. Barnes whirls a partner around the room, ages after she is ready to faint. What wicked fun he makes of other people when he stops. He is not handsome, but in his face there is something odd-looking and distinguished.
It is certain he has beautiful small feet and hands. He comes every day from the city. Drops in, in his quiet, unobtrusive way, and drinks tea at five o'clock. Always brings a budget of the funniest stories with him. Makes Mama laugh. Clara laugh. Henrietta, who is in the schoolroom still, die of laughing. Papa has the highest opinion of Mr. Newcomb as a man of business. If he had had such a friend in early life, his affairs Would not be where they now are. Poor dear kind papa. Do they want to go anywhere? Is not Mr. Newcomb always ready? Did he not procure that delightful room for them to witness the Lord Mayor's show? And may Clara die of laughing at those odd city people at the Mansion Hall Ball?
He is at every party, and never tired, though he gets up so early. He waltzes with nobody else. He is always there to put Lady Clara in the carriage. At the drawing room, he looked quite handsome in his uniform of the Newcomb Hussars. Bottle green and silver lace. He speaks politics so exceedingly well with Papa, and gentlemen after dinner. He is a sound conservative, full of practical good sense and information. With no dangerous new-fangled ideas such as young men have. When poor dear Sir Brian Newcomb's health gives way quite, Mr. Newcomb will go into Parliament, and then he will resume the old barony, which has been in abeyance in the family since the reign of Richard III. They had fallen quite, quite low.
Mr. Newcomb's grandfather came to London with the satchel on his back, like Whittington. Isn't it romantic? This process has been going on for months. It is not in one day that poor Lady Clara has been made to forget the past and to lay aside her mourning, day after day very likely. The undeniable faults and many peccadilloes of that other person have been exposed to her. People around the young lady may desire to spare her feelings, but can have no interest in screening poor Jack from condign reprobation. A wild prodigal, a disgrace to his order, a son of old Highgate's leading such a life and making such a scandal. Lord Dorking believes Mr. Belsize to be an abandoned monster and fiend in human shape, gathers and relates all the stories that ever have been told to the young man's disadvantage, and of these he's sure there are enough, and speaks of him with transports of indignation.
At the end of months of unwearied courtship, Mr. Barnes Newcomb is honestly accepted. And Lady Clara is waiting for him at Baden. Not unhappy to receive him, when walking on the promenade with her father, the ghost of her dead love suddenly rises before her, and the young lady faints to the ground. When Barnes Newcomes thinks fit, he can be perfectly placable in his demeanor and delicate in his conduct. What he said upon this painful subject was delivered with the greatest propriety. He did not for one moment consider that Lady Clare's agitation arose from any present feeling in Mr. Belsize's favor, but that she was naturally moved by the remembrance of the past, and the sudden appearance which recalled it, and but that a lady's name should never be made the subject of dispute between men.
Newcomb said to Lord Dorking, with great dignity, and that Captain Belsize has opportunely quitted the place. I should certainly have chastised him. He and another adventurer, against whom I have had to warn my own family, have quitted Bodden this afternoon. I am glad that both are gone, Captain Belsize especially, for my temper, my lord, is hot. And I do not think I should have commanded it. Lord Q., when the elder lord informed him of this admirable speech of Barnes Newcombs, upon whose character, prudence, and dignity, the Earl of Dorking, pronounced a fervent eulogium, shook his head gravely, and said, Yes, Barnes was a dead shot, and a most determined fellow, and did not burst out laughing until he and Lord Dorking had parted.
Then, to be sure, he took his fill of laughter. He told the story to Ethel. He complimented Barnes on his heroic self-denial. The joke of the thundering big stick was nothing to it. Barnes Newcomb laughed, too. He had plenty of humor, Barnes. I think you might have whopped Jack when he came out from his interview with the Dorkings, Q said. The poor devil was so bewildered and weak. That Alfred might have thrashed him. At other times you would find it more difficult, Barnes, by man. Mr. B. Newcomb resumed his dignity, said a joke was a joke, and there was quite enough of this one, which assertion we may be sure he conscientiously made. That meeting and parting between the old lovers passed with a great deal of calm and propriety on both sides.
Mrs. Parrott's, of course, were present when Jack, at their summons, waited upon them and their daughter, and made his hangdog bow. My Lord Dorking said. Poor Jack, in the anguish of his heart, had poured out the story to Clive Newcomb afterwards. Mr. Velsize, I have to apologize for words which I used in my heat yesterday, and which I recall in regret. "'As I am sure you do that, there should have been any occasion for them.' Mr. Belsize, looking at the carpet, said he was very sorry. Lady Dorking, he remarked, that as Captain Belsize was now at Baden, he might wish to hear from Lady Clara Poulain's own lips that the engagement into which she had entered was formed by herself, certainly with the consent and advice of her family.
Is it not so, my dear?" Lady Clara said, Yes, Mama, with a low curtsy. We have now to wish you good-bye, Charles Bell sighs, said my lord, with some feeling. As your relative, and your father's old friend, I wish you well. I hope your future course in life may not be so unfortunate as the past year. I request that we may part friends. Good-bye, Charles. Clara Shake hands with Captain Belsize. My Lady Dorking, you were pleased to give Charles your hand. You have known him since he was a child, and, and, we are sorry to be obliged to part in this way. In this wise Mr. Jack Belsize's tooth was finally extracted, and for the moment we wish him and his brother, patient, a good journey. Little Link's Eye Dr.
Von Fink, who attends most of the polite company at Baden, drove ceaselessly about the place that day, with the real version of the fainting-fit story, about which we may be sure the wicked and malicious, and the uninitiated, had a hundred absurd details. Lady Clara ever engaged to Captain Bell's eyes? Fiddle-dee-dee. Everybody knew the captain's affairs, and that he could no more think of marrying than flying. Lady Clara fainted seeing him. She fainted before he came up. She was always fainting, and had done so thrice in the last week to his knowledge. Lord Dorking had a nervous affection of his right arm, and was always shaking his stick. He did not say villain. He said William. Captain Belsire's name is William.
It is not so in the peerage. Is he called Jack in the peerage? Those peerages are always wrong. These candid explanations, of course, had their effect. Wicked tongues were, of course, instantaneously silent. People were entirely satisfied. They always are. The next night, being assembly night, Lady Clara appeared at the rooms and danced with Lord Q and Mr. Barnes Newcomb. All the society was as gracious and good-humoured as possible, and there was no more question of fainting than of burning down the conversation house. But Madame de Kruijkaasche and Madame de Schlagenbad and those horrid people whom the men speak to. But whom the women salute with silent curtsies, persisted in declaring that there was no prude like an English prude, and to Dr.
Finksoff's assertions, explanations only replied, with a shrug of their bold shoulders. T'essay-vous, docteur? Vous n'êtes qu'une vielle bette? Lady Q was at the rooms, uncommonly gracious. Miss Ethel took a few turns of the waltz with Lord Q., but this nymph looked more ferocious than upon ordinary days. Bob Jones, who admired her hugely, asked Leah to waltz with her, and entertained her with recollections of Clive Newcomb at school. He remembered a fight in which Clive had been engaged, and recounted that action to Miss Newcomb, who seemed to be interested. He was pleased to deplore Clive's fancy for turning artist, and that Miss Newcomb recommended him to have his illness taken. For she said his appearance was exceedingly picturesque.
He was going on with further prattle, but she suddenly cut Mr. Jones short, making him a bow and going to sit down by Lady Q. And the next day, sir, said Bob, with whom the present writer had the happiness of dining at a mess dinner at the upper temple. When I met her on the walk, sir, she cut me as dead as a stone. The ears that swells give themselves is enough to make any man turn Republican. Miss Ethel indeed was haughty, very haughty, and of a difficult temper. She spared none of her party except her kind mother, to whom Ethel always was kind. and her father, whom, since his illnesses, she tended with much benevolence and care. But she did battle with Lady Q repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia's rescue, on whom her mother, as usual, exercised her powers of torturing.
She made Barnes quail before her by the shafts of contempt which he flashed at him, and she did not spare Lord Q. whose good nature was no shield against her scorn. The old Queen Mother was fairly afraid of her. She even left off beating Lady Julia when Ethel came in, of course taking her revenge in the young girl's absence, but trying in her presence to soothe and please her. Against Lord Q, the young girl's anger was most unjust. and the more cruel because the kindly young nobleman never spoke a hard word of any one mortal soul, and, carrying no arms, should have been assaulted by none. But his very good nature seemed to make his young opponent only the more wrathful. She shot because his honest breast was bare.
It bled at the wounds which he inflicted. Her relatives looked at her, surprised at her cruelty. And the young man himself was shocked in his dignity and best feelings by his cousin's wanton ill-humour. Lady Q. thinks that she understood the cause of this peevishness and remonstrated with Miss Ethel. Shall we write a letter to Lucerne and order Dick Tinto back again, said her ladyship. Are you such a fool, Ethel, as to be hankering after that young scapegrace and his yellow beard? His drawings are very pretty. Why, I think he might earn a couple of hundred a year as a teacher, and nothing would be easier than to break your engagement with Q and whistle the drawing master back again. Ethel took up the whole heap of Clive's drawings, lighted a taper, carried the drawings to the fireplace, and set them in a blaze.
A very pretty piece of work, says Lady Q. And which proved satisfactorily that you don't care for the young Clive at all. Have we arranged a correspondence? We are cousins, you know. We may write pretty cousinly letters to one another. A month before the old lady would have attacked her with other arms than sarcasm, but she was scared now and dared to use no coarser weapons. Oh, cried Ethel in a transport, what a life ours is, and how you buy and sell and haggle over your children. It is not Clive I care about, poor boy. Our ways of life are separate. I cannot break from my own family, and I know very well how you would receive him in it. Had he money, it would be different. You would receive him and welcome him, and hold out your hands to him.
But he is only a poor painter, and we, forsooth, are bankers in the city, and he comes among us on sufferance, like those concert singers whom Mama treats with so much politeness, and who go down and have suffered by themselves. Why should they not be as good as we are? Monsieur Desi, my dear, is of a noble family," interposed Lady Q. When he has given up singing and made his fortune, no doubt he can go back into the world again. Made his fortune? Yes, Ethel continued. That is the cry. There never were, since the world began, people so unblushingly sorted. We own it and are proud of it. We barter rank against money, and money against rank, day after day. Why did you marry my father to my mother?
"'Was it for his wit? You know he might have been an angel, and you would have scorned him. Your daughter was bought with Papa's money as surely as ever Newcomb was. Will there be no day when this mammon worship will cease among us?' "'Not in my time or yours,' Ethel," the elder said, not unkindly. Perhaps she thought of a day long ago, before she was old herself." We are sold, the young girl went on. We are as much sold as Turkish women, the only difference being that our masters may have but one Circassian at a time. No, there is no freedom for us. I wear my green ticket and wait till my master comes. But every day, as I think of our slavery, I revolt against it more. That poor wretch, that poor girl whom my brother is to marry, why did she not revolt and fly?
I would, if I loved a man sufficiently, loved him better than the world, than wealth, than rank, than fine houses and titles. And I feel I loved these best. I would give up all to follow him. What can I be with my name and my parents? I belong to the world like all the rest of the family. It is you who have brought us up, you who are answerable for us. Why are there no convents to which we can fly? You make a fine marriage for me. You provide me with a good husband, a kind soul, not very wise, but very kind. You make me what you call happy, and I would rather be at the plow like the women here." These are the fine speeches of schoolgirls. The showers of rain would spoil your complexion. You would be perfectly tired in an hour, and come back to luncheon.
You belong to your belongings, my dear, and are not better than the rest of the world. Very good-looking, as you know perfectly well, and not very good-tempered. It is lucky that Q is. Calm your temper, at least before marriage. Such a prize does not fall to a pretty girl's lot every day. Why, you send him away quite seared by your cruelty. And if he is not playing at roulette or at billiards, I dare say he is thinking what a little termagant you are, and that he had best pause while it is yet time. Before I was married, your poor grandfather never knew I had a temper. Of after days I say nothing. But trials are good for all of us, and he bore his like an angel. Lady Q, too, on this occasion at least, was admirably good-humoured.
She also, when it was necessary, could put a restraint on her temper, and, having this match very much at heart, chose to coax and to soothe her granddaughter, rather than to endeavour to scold and frighten her. Why do you desire this marriage so much, Grandmama, the girl asked. My cousin is not very much in love. At least I should fancy not, she added, blushing. I am bound to own. Lord Q is not in the least eager, and I think if you were to tell him to wait for five years, he would be quite willing. Why should you be so very anxious? Why, my dear? Because I think young ladies who want to go and work in the fields should make hay while the sun shines. Because I think it is high time that Q should ranger himself.
Because I am sure he will make the best husband, and Ethel the prettiest countess in England. And the old lady, seldom exhibiting any signs of affection, looked at her granddaughter very fondly. From her, Ethel looked up into the glass, which very likely repeated on its shining face the truth her elder had just uttered. Shall we quarrel with the girl for that dazzling reflection? For owning that charming truth, and submitting to the conscious triumph. Give her part of vanity, of youth, of desire to rule and be admired. Meanwhile, Mr. Clive's drawings have been crackling in the fireplace at her feet, and the last spark of that combustion is twinkling out unheeded.
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33 33 - Chapter 33: Lady Kew at the Congress 29:51
Lady Q. at the Congress. When Lady Q heard that Madame d'Evry was at Baden, and was informed at once of the French lady's graciousness toward the Newcomb family, and of her fury against Lord Q, the old Countess gave a loose to that energetic temper which nature had gifted her. A temper which she tied up sometimes and kept from barking and biting. But which, when unmuzzled, was an animal of whom all her ladyship's family had a just apprehension. Not one of them, but in his or her time, had been wounded, lacerated, tumbled over, otherwise frightened or injured by this unruly brute. The cowards brought its sops and patted it. The prudent gave it a clear breath, and walked round so as not to meet it.
But woe be to those of the family who had to bring the meal and prepare the litter and, to speak respectfully, share the kennel with Lady Q's black dog. Surely a fine furious temper, if accompanied with a certain magnanimity and bravery which often go together with it, is one of the most precious and fortunate gifts which a gentleman or lady can be endowed. A person always ready to fight is certain of the greatest consideration amongst his or her family circle. The lazy grow tired of contending with him. The timid coax and flatter him. And as almost everyone is timid or lazy, a bad-tempered man is sure to have his own way. It is he who commands, and all the others obey. If he is a gourmand, he has what he likes for dinner, and the tastes of all the rest are subservient to him.
She, we playfully transfer the gender, as a bad temper is of both sexes, has the place which he likes best in the drawing-room. Nor do her parents, nor her brothers and sisters, venture to take her favorite chair. If she wants to go to a party, Mama will dress herself in spite of her headache, and Papa, who hates those dreadful soirees, will go upstairs after dinner and put on his poor old white neckcloth, though he has been toiling at chambers all day and must be there early in the morning. He will go out with her, we say, and stay for the cotillion. If the family are taking their tour in the summer, it is she who obtains whither they shall go, and when they shall stop. If he comes home late, the dinner is kept for him, and no one dares to say a word, though ever so hungry.
If he is in a good humor, how everyone frisks about and is happy. How the servants jump up at his bell, and run to wait upon him. How they sit up patiently, and how eagerly they rush out to fetch cabs in the rain. Whereas for you and me, who have the tempers of angels, and never were known to be angry or to complain, nobody cares whether we are pleased or not. Our wives go to the milliners and send us the bill, and we pay it. Our John finishes reading the newspaper before he answers our bell, and brings it to us. Our sons lull in the armchair, which we should like, fill the house with their young men, and smoke in the dining room. Our tailors fit us badly. Our butchers give us the youngest mutton.
Our tradesmen done us much more quickly than other peoples, because they know we are good-natured, and our servants go out whatever they like and openly have their friends to supper in the kitchen. When Lady Q said, Sic Folo, Sic Jubio, I promise you few persons of her ladyship's belongings stopped before they did her biddings to ask her reasons. If, which very seldom happens, there are two such imperious and dominating spirits in a family, unpleasantries, of course, will arise from their contentions, or, if out of doors, The family, Bahazet, meets with some other violent Turk. Dreadful battles ensue. All the allies on either side are brought in, and the surrounding neighbors perforce engaged in the quarrel.
This was unluckily the case in the present instance. Lady Q, unaccustomed to have her will question at home, liked to impose it abroad. She judged the persons around it with great freedom of speech. Her opinions were quoted, as people's sayings will be, and if she made bitter speeches, depend on it. They lost nothing in the carrying. She was furious against Madame la Duchesse, deeply, and exploded in various companies whenever the lady's name was mentioned. Why was she not with her husband? Why was the poor old Duke left to his gout, and this woman trailing through the country with her vagabond court of billiard-markers at her heels? She, to call herself Mary Queen of Scots, forsooth. Well, she merited the title in some respects, though she had not murdered her husband as yet.
"'Ah, I would like to be Queen Elizabeth as the Duchess's Queen of Scots,' said the old lady, shaking her old fist. And these sentiments being uttered in public upon the promenade to mutual friends. Of course, the Duchess had the benefit of Lady Q's remarks a few minutes after they were uttered. And her grace, And the distinguished princess, counts, and noblemen in her court, designated as billiard-makers by the old countess, returned the latter's compliments with pretty speeches of their own. Scandals were dug up respecting her ladyship, so old that one would have thought them forgotten these forty years, so old that they happened before most of the newcomers now extant were born. And surely, therefore, are out of the province of this contemporary biography.
Lady Q was indignant with her daughter. There were some moments when any conduct of her friends did not meet her ladyship's approbation, even for the scant civility with which Lady Anne had received the Duchess's advance. Leave a card upon her. Yes, send a card by one of your footmen. But go in to see her. Because she was at the window and saw you drive up. Are you mad, Anne? That was the very reason you should not have come out of your carriage. But you were so weak and good-natured that if a highwayman stopped you... You would say, thank you, sir, as you gave him your purse. Yes, and if Mrs. McKeith called on you afterwards, you would return the visit. Even had these speeches been made about the Duchess, And some of them not addressed to her.
Things might have gone on pretty well. If we quarreled with all the people who abused us behind our backs, and began to tear their eyes out as soon as we set hours on them, what a life it would be! And when should we have any quiet? Backbiting is all fair in society. Abuse me, and I will abuse you. But let us be friends when we meet. Have not we all entered a dozen rooms and been sure, from the countenances of the amiable persons present, that they had been discussing our little peculiarities, perhaps as we were on the stairs? Was our visit, therefore, the less agreeable? Did we quarrel and say hard words to one another's faces? No, we wait until some of our dear friends take their leave. And then comes our turn.
My back is at my neighbor's service. As soon as that is turned, let him make what faces he thinks proper. But when we meet, we grin and shake hands like well-bred folk, to whom clean linen is not more necessary than a clean, sweet-looking countenance, and a nicely got-up smile for company. Here was Lady Q's mistake. She wanted, for some reason, to drive Madame D'Evry out of Baden. And thought there were no better means of effecting this object than by using the high hand, and practicing those frowns upon the Duchess which had scared away so many other persons. But the Queen of Scots was resolute too, and her band of courteous fought stoutly round about her. Some of them could not pay their bills, and could not retreat.
Others had courage, and did not choose to fly. Instead of coaxing and soothing Madame D'Evry, Madame de Kew, thought by a brisk attack to rout and dislodge her, she began on almost the very first occasion when the ladies met. "'I was so sorry to hear that Monsieur Le Duc was ill at Bagner's. Madame la Duchesse.' The old lady began on their very first meeting, after the usual salutations had taken place. Madame la Comtesse is very kind to interest herself in Monsieur D'Evre's health. Monsieur le Duc, at his age, is not disposed to travel. You, dear milady, are more happy in being always able to retain the gout du voyage. I come to my family, my dear Duchess. How charmed they must be to possess you, milady Anne.
You must be inexpressibly consoled by the presence of a mother so tender. Permit me to present Madame la Contesse de la Courtochet to Madame la Contesse de Kew. My Lady is sister to that amiable Marquis of Steyn, whom you have known, Ambrosine. Madame la Baron de Schlagenbad, My Lady Kew. Do you not see the resemblance to Melor? These ladies have enjoyed the hospitalities, the splendors of Gaunt House. They were of those famous routes of which the charming Mistress Crawley, La Sommelante Becky, made part. How sad the Hotel de Gaunt must be under the present circumstances. Have you heard, milady, of the charming Mistress Becky? Monsieur le Duc, describes her as the most spiritual English woman he had ever met.
The Queen of Scots turns and whispers her Lady of Honor, and shrugs and taps her forehead. Lady Q. knows that Madame de Vries speaks of her nephew, the present Lord Steyne, who is not in his right mind. The Duchess looks round, and sees a friend in the distance whom she beckons. Comtesse, You know already Monsieur the Captain Blackball. He makes the delight of our society. A dreadful man with a large cigar, a florid waistcoat, and billiards written on his countenance, swaggits forward at the Duchess's summons. The Countess of Q has not gained much by her attack. She has been presented to Krukakache and Schlagenbad. She sees herself on the eve of becoming the acquaintance of Captain Blackball.
Permit me, Duchess, to choose my English friends at least for myself, says Lady Q, drumming her foot. But, Madame, assuredly, you do not love this good Monsieur de Blackball. Eh? The English manners are droll. Pardon me for saying so. It is wonderful how proud you are as a nation, and how ashamed you are of your compatriots. There are some persons who are ashamed of nothing, Madame la Duchesse, cries Lady Q, losing her temper. Is that gracia sete for me? How much goodness! This good Monsieur de Black Ball is not very well bred. But, for an Englishman, he is not too bad. I have met with people who are more ill-bred than Englishmen in my travels." "'And they are,' said Lady Anne, who has been in vain endeavoring to put an end to this colloquy.
"'English women, madame, I speak not for you. You are kind. You, you are too soft, dear Lady Anne, for a persecutor.'" The counsels of the worldly woman, who governed and directed that branch of the Newcomb family, of whom it is our business to speak now for a little while, bore other results than those which the elderly lady desired and foresaw, who can foresee everything and always, not the wisest among us. When His Majesty, Louis XIV, jockeyed his grandson onto the throne of Spain, Founding thereby the present revered dynasty of that country, did he expect to peril his own, and bring all Europe about his royal ears? Could a late king of France, eager for the advantageous establishment of one of his darling sons, and anxious to procure a beautiful Spanish princess, with a crown and kingdom in reversion for the simple and obedient youth, Ever supposed that the welfare of his whole August race and reign would be upset by that smart speculation?
We take only the most noble examples to illustrate the conduct of such a noble old personage as her ladyship of Q, who brought a prodigious deal of trouble upon some of the innocent members of her family. Whom, no doubt, she thought to better in life by her experienced guidance and undoubted worldly wisdom. We may be as deep as Jesuits, know the world ever so well, lay the best-ordered plans and the profoundest combinations, and by a certain not unnatural turn of fate, we, in our plans and combinations, are sent flying before the wind. We may be as wise as Louis Philippe, that many counseled Ulysses, whom the respectable world admired so. And after years of patient scheming and prodigies of skill, after coaxing, wheedling, doubling, bullying, wisdom, behold yet stronger powers interpose, and schemes and skill and violence are naught.
Frank and Ethel Lady Q's grandchildren were both the obedient subjects of this ancient despot, this imperious old Louis XIV, in a black front and cap and ribbon, this scheming old Louis-Philippe in tavernet. But their blood was good in their tempers high, and for all her bidding and driving and the training of her menage, the generous young colts were hard to break. Ethel, at this time, was especially stubborn in training, rebellious to the whip, and wild unto harness, and the way in which Lady Q managed her won the admiration of her family, for it was a maximum among these folks that no one could manage Ethel but Lady Q. Barnes said no one could manage his sister but his grandmother. He couldn't, that was certain.
Mama never tried. and indeed was so good-natured that rather than ride the filly, she would put the saddle on her own back and let the filly ride her. No, there was no one but her ladyship capable of managing that girl, Barnes owned, who held Lady Q in much respect and awe. If the tightest hand were not kept on her, there's no knowing what she mightn't do, said her brother. Ethel Newcomb, by Jove, is capable of running away with the writing master. After poor Jack Belsize's mishappened departure, Barnes' own bride showed no spirit at all, save one placid contentment. She came at call and instantly and went through whatever paces her owner demanded of her. She laughed whenever need was, simpered in smile when spoken to.
danced whenever she was asked, drove out at Barnes's side in Cue's Phaeton, and received him certainly not with warmth, but with politeness and welcome. It is difficult to describe the scorn with which her sister-in-law regarded her. The sight of the patient, timid little thing chafed Ethel, who was always more haughty and flighty and bold when in Clary's presence than at any other time. Her ladyship's brother, Captain Lord Viscount Rooster, before mentioned, joined the family party at this interesting juncture. My Lord Rooster found himself surprised, delighted, subjugated by Miss Newcomb, her wit and spirit. By Jove, she is a plucky one, his lordship exclaimed. To dance with her is the best fun in life.
How she pulls all the other girls to pieces. By Jove. And how splendidly she chaffes everybody. But, he added with the shrewdness and sense of humor which distinguished the young officer, I'd rather dance with her than marry her. By a deuced long score. I don't envy you that part of the business, Q, my boy. Lord Q did not set himself up as a person to be envied. He thought his cousin beautiful. And with his grandmother, that she would make a very handsome countess, and he thought the money which Lady Q would give or leave to the young couple a very welcome addition to his means. On the next night, when there was a ball at the room, Miss Ethel chose to appear in a toilette, the very grandest and finest which she had ever assumed, who was ordinarily exceedingly simple in her attire.
And dressed below the mark of the rest of the world. Her clustering ringlets, her shining white shoulders, her splendid raiment—I believe, indeed, it was her court dress which the young lady assumed—astonished all beholders. She accresced all other beauties by her appearance, so much so that Madame d'Evry's court could not but look. The men in admiration, the women in dislike, at this dazzling young creature. None of the countesses, duchesses, princesses, Russ, Spanish, Italian, were so fine or so handsome. There were some New York ladies at Baden, as there are everywhere else in Europe now. Not even these were more magnificent than Miss Ethel. General Jeremiah J. Bung's lady owned that Miss Newcomb was fit to appear in any party in Fourth Avenue.
She was the only well-dressed English girl Mrs. Bung had seen in Europe. A young German Dirschlach deigned to explain to his aide-de-camp a very handsome, he thought, Miss Newcomb. All our acquaintances were of one mind. Mr. Jones of England pronounced her stunning. The admirable Captain Blackball examined her points with the skill of an amateur and described them with agreeable frankness. Lord Brewster was charmed as he surveyed her and complimented his late companion-in-arms on the possession of such a paragon. Only Lord Q was not delighted, nor did Miss Ethel mean that he should be. She looked as splendid as Cinderella in the Prince's palace. But what need for all this splendor, this wonderful toilette, this dazzling neck and shoulders, whereof the brightness and beauty blinded the eyes of lookers-on?
She was dressed as gaudily as an actress of the varieties, going to supper at Trois-Fres. It was Mademoiselle Maubille on her beat, madame Diffrie remarked to madame Sloggenbod. Barnes, who, with his bride-elect for a partner, Made a vis-à-vis for his sister and the admiring Lord Rooster, was puzzled likewise by Ethel's countenance and appearance. Little Lady Clara looked like a little schoolgirl dancing before her. One, two, three of the attendants of Her Majesty the Queen of Scots were carried off in the course of the evening by the victorious young beauty, whose triumph had the effect which the headstrong girl perhaps herself anticipated, of mortifying the Duchess D'Vry, of exasperating old Lady Q, and of annoying the young nobleman to whom Miss Ethel was engaged.
The girl seemed to take a pleasure in defying all three. A something embittered her, alike against her friends and her enemies. The old dowager chaffed and vented her wrath upon Lady Anne and Barnes. Ethel kept the ball alive by herself almost. She refused to go home, declining hints and commands alike. She was engaged for ever so many dances more. Not dance with Count Plunter. It would be rude to leave him after promising him. Not waltz with Captain Blackball. He was not a proper partner for her. Why, then, did Q know him? Lord Q walked and talked with Captain Blackball every day. Was she to be so proud as not to know Lord Q's friends? She greeted the captain with a most fascinating smile as he came up whilst the controversy was pending, and ended it by whirling round the room in his arms.
Madame D'Vrie viewed with such pleasure as might be expected the defection of her adherents, and the triumph of her youthful rival, who seemed to grow more beautiful with each waltz, so that the other dancers paused to look at her, the men breaking out in enthusiasm, the reluctant women being forced to join in the applause. Angry as she was, and knowing how Ethel's conduct angered her grandson. Old Lady Q could not help admiring the rebellious beauty, whose girlish spirit was more than a match for the imperious dowager's tough old resolution. As for Mr. Barnes's displeasure, the girl tossed her saucy head, shrugged her fair shoulders, and passed on with a scornful laugh. In a word, Miss Ethel conducted herself as a most reckless and intrepid young flirt.
Using her eyes with the most consummate effect, chattering with astounding gaiety, prodigal of smiles, gracious thanks and killing glances, what wicked spirit moved her? Perhaps, had she known the mischief she was doing, she would have continued it still. The sight of this wilfulness and levity smote poor Lord Q's honest heart with cruel pangs of mortification. The easy young nobleman had passed many a year of his life in all sorts of wild company. The showmen year knew him, and the balls of Parisian actresses, the coulisses of the opera at home and abroad, those pretty heads of ladies whom nobody knows, used to nod their shining ringlets at queue, from private boxes at theatres, or dubious park brogms.
He had run the career of young men of pleasure, And laughed and feasted with jolly prodigals and their company. He was tired of it. Perhaps he remembered an earlier and purer life, and was sighing to return to it. Living as he had done among the outcasts, his ideal of domestic virtue was high and pure. He chose to believe that good women were entirely good. Duplicity could not understand. Ill-temper shocked him. Willfulness, he seemed to fancy, belonged only to the profane and wicked, not to good girls with good mothers in honest homes. Their nature was to love their families, to obey their parents, to tend their poor, to honor their husbands, to cherish their children. Ethel's laugh woke him up from one of those simple reveries very likely.
And then she swept round the ballroom rapidly to the praise and notes of the orchestra. He never offered to dance with her more than once in the evening, went away to play, and returned to find her still whirling to the music. Madame D'Evry remarked his tribulation and gloomy face, though she took no pleasure at his discomfiture, knowing that Ethel's behavior caused it. In plays and novels, and I dare say in real life, too, sometimes, when the wanton heroine chooses to exert her powers of fascination and to flirt with Sir Harry or the captain, the hero, in a peak, goes off and makes love to somebody else. Both acknowledge their folly after a while, shake hands, and are reconciled, and the curtain drops or the volume ends.
But there are some people too noble and simple for these amorous scenes and smirking artifices. When Q was pleased, he laughed. When he was grieved, he was silent. He did not deign to hide his grief or pleasure under disguises. His error, perhaps, was in forgetting that Ethel was very young, that her conduct was not designed so much as girlish mischief and high spirits. And that if young men have their frolics, sow their wild oats, and enjoy their pleasure, young women may be permitted sometimes their more harmless vagaries of gaiety, and sportive outbreaks of willful humor. When she consented to go home at length, Lord Q brought Miss Newcomb's little white cloak for her, under the hood of which her glossy curls, her blushing cheeks, and bright eyes looked provokingly handsome.
and encased her in this pretty garment without uttering one single word. She made him a saucy curtsy in return for this act of politeness, which salutation he received with a grave bow, and then he proceeded to cover up old lady Q, and to conduct her ladyship to her chariot. Miss Ethel chose to be displeased at her cousin's displeasure. What were balls made for, but that people should dance? She a flirt? She displeased Lord Q? If she chose to dance, she would dance. She had no idea of his giving himself airs. Besides, it was such fun taking away the gentlemen of Mary, Queen of Scots Court, from her. Such capital fun. So she went to bed, singing and performing wonderful roulades, as she lighted her candle and retired to her room.
She had had such a jolly evening, such famous fun, and, I dare say, but how shall a novelist penetrate these mysteries? When her chamber door was closed, she scolded her maid and was as cross as two sticks. You see, There come moments of sorrow after the most brilliant victories, and you conquer and rout the enemy utterly, and then regret that you fought.
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34 34 - Chapter 34: The End of the Congress of Baden 55:36
The End of the Congress of Baden. Mention has been made of an elderly young person from Ireland, engaged by Madame la Duchesse D'Evry, as companion and teacher of English for her little daughter. When Miss O'Grady, as she did sometime afterwards, quitted Madame D'Evry's family, she spoke with great freedom regarding the behavior of that Duchess, and recounted horrors which she, the latter, had committed. A number of the most terrific anecdotes issued from the lips of the indignant Miss, whose volubility Lord Q was obliged to check, not choosing that his Countess, with whom he was paying a bridal visit to Paris, should hear such dreadful legends. It was there that Miss O'Grady, finding herself in misfortune and reading of Lord Q's arrival at the Hotel Bristol, waited upon his lordship and the Countess of Q, begging them to take tickets and a raffle for an invaluable ivory writing-desk, sole relic of her former prosperity, which she proposed to give her friends the chance of acquiring.
In fact, Miss O'Grady lived for some years on the produce of repeated raffles for this beautiful desk. Many religious ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, taking an interest in her misfortunes and alleviating them by the simple lottery system, Protestants as well as Catholics were permitted to take shares in Miss O'Grady's raffles, and Lord Q., good-natured then, as always, purchased so many tickets that the contrite O'Grady informed him of a transaction which had nearly affected his happiness, and in which she took a not very creditable share. Had I known your lordship's real character, Miss O'G. was pleased to say, No tortures would have induced me to do an act for which I have undergone penance.
It was that black-hearted woman, my lord, whom aligned your lordship to me, that woman whom I called friend once, but who was the most false, depraved, and dangerous of her sex. In this way do ladies' companions sometimes speak of ladies when quarrels separate them. When confidential attendants are dismissed, bearing away family secrets in their minds and revenge in their hearts. The day after Miss Ethel's feet said the assembly, old lady Q went over to advise her granddaughter and to give her a little timely warning about the impropriety of flirtations. Above all, with such men as are to be found at watering places. Persons who are never seen elsewhere in society. Remark the peculiarities of Q's temper.
Who never flies into a passion like you and me, my dear, said the old lady, being determined to be particularly gracious and cautious. When once angry, he remains so, and is so obstinate that it is almost impossible to coax him into good humor. It is much better, my love, to be like us. continued the old lady, to fly out in a rage and have it over. But que voulez-vous? Such as Frank's temper, and we must manage him. So she went on, backing her advice by a crowd of examples drawn from the family history, showing how Q was like his grandfather, her old poor husband, still more like his late father, Lord Wallum. Between whom and his mother there had been differences, chiefly brought on by my Lady Wallum, of course, which had ended in the almost total estrangement of mother and son.
Lady Q then administered her advice, and told her stories with Ethel alone for a listener, and in a most edifying manner. She besought Miss Newcomb to manage Lord Q's susceptibilities, as she valued her own future comfort in life, as well as the happiness of a most amiable man, of whom, if properly managed, Ethel might make what she pleased. We have said Lady Q managed everybody, and that most of the members of her family allowed themselves to be managed by her ladyship. Ethel Who had permitted her grandmother to continue her sententious advice, while she herself sat tapping her feet on the floor and performing the most rapid variations of that air, which is called the Devil's Tattoo, burst out at length to the elder lady's surprise, with an outbreak of indignation, a flushing face, and a voice quivering with anger.
This most amiable man, she cried out, That you designed for me. I know everything about this most amiable man, and thank you and my family for the present you make me. For the past year, what have you been doing? Every one of you, my father, my brother, and you yourself, have been filling my ears with cruel reports against a poor boy. Whom you chose to depict as everything that was dissolute and wicked, when there was nothing against him, nothing, but that he was poor. Yes, you yourself, Grandmama, had told me many and many a time that Clive Newcomb was not a fit companion for us, warned me against his bad courses, and painted him as extravagant, unprincipled. I don't know how bad. How bad? I know how good he is, how upright, generous, and truth-telling, though there was not a day until lately that Barnes did not make some wicked story against him.
Barnes, who I believe, is bad himself, like the other young men. Yes, I am sure there was something about Barnes in that newspaper, which my father took away from me. And you come, and you lift up your hands and shake your head. Because I danced with one gentleman or another. You tell me I am wrong. Mama has told me so this morning. Barnes, of course, has told me so. And you bring me Frank as a pattern, and tell me to love and honor and obey him. Look here," and she drew out a paper and put it into Lady Q's hands. Here is Q's history, and I believe it is true. Yes, I am sure it is true. The old dowager lifted her eyeglass to her black eyebrow and read a paper written in English, and bearing no signature, in which many circumstances of Lord Q's life were narrated for poor Ethel's benefit.
It was not a worse life than that of a thousand young men of pleasure, but there were Q's many misdeeds set down in order. Such a catalogue as we laugh at when Leporello trolls it and sings his master's victories in France, Italy, and Spain. Madame D'Evry's name was not mentioned in this list, and Lady Q felt sure that the outrage came from her. With real ardor, Lady Q sought to defend her grandson from some of the attacks he had made against him. And showed Ethel that the person who could use such means of culminating him would not scruple to resort to falsehoods in order to affect her purpose. Her purpose, cries Ethel, how do you know it is a woman? Lady Q lapsed into generalities. She thought the handwriting was a woman's.
At least it was not likely that a man should think of addressing an anonymous letter to a young lady. and so wreaking his hatred upon Lord Q. Besides, Frank has had no rivals, except, except one young gentleman who has carried his paint-boxes to Italy," says Lady Q. You don't think your dear Colonel's son would leave such a piece of mischief behind him? You must act, my dear," continued her ladyship, as if this letter had never been written at all. The person who wrote it no doubt will watch you. Of course, we are too proud to allow him to see that we are wounded. And pray, pray do not think of letting poor Frank know a word about this horrid transaction. Then the letter is true, burst out Ethel.
You know it is true, Grandmama, and that is why you would have me keep it secret from my cousin. Besides, she added with a little hesitation, your caution comes too late. Lord Q has seen the letter. You fool, screamed the old lady. You were not so mad as to show it to him. I'm sure the letter is true, Ethel said, rising up very haughtily. It is not by calling me bad names that your ladyship will disprove it. Keep them, if you please, for my Aunt Julia. She is sick and weak and can't defend herself. I do not choose to bear abuse from you or lectures from Lord Q. He happened to be here a short while since, when the letter arrived. He had been good enough to come to preach me a sermon on his own account.
He, to find fault with my actions, cried Miss Ethel, quivering with wrath and clenching the luckless paper in her hand. He to accuse me of levity, and to warn me against making improper acquaintances. He began his lectures too soon. I am not a lawful slave yet, and prefer to remain unmolested, at least as long as I am free. And you told Frank all this, Miss Newcomb? And you showed him that letter, said the old lady? The letter was actually brought to me whilst his lordship was in the midst of his sermon, Ethel replied. I read it as he was making his speech, he continued, gathering anger and scorn as she recalled the circumstances of the interview. He was perfectly polite in his language. He did not call me a fool or use a single other bad name.
He was good enough to advise me and to make such virtuous pretty speeches, that if he had been a bishop, he could not have spoken better. And as I thought the letter was a nice commentary on his lordship's sermon, I gave it to him. I gave it to him," cried the young woman, and much good may it do him. I don't think my lord Q will preach to me again for some time. "'I don't think he will indeed,' said Lady Q, in a hard, dry voice. "'You don't know what you may have done. Will you be pleased to ring the bell and order my carriage?' I congratulate you on having performed a most charming morning's work. Ethel made her grandmother a very stately curtsy. I pity Lady Julia's condition when her mother reached home.
All who knew Lord Q may be pretty sure that in that unlucky interview with Ethel, to which the young lady has alluded, he just said no single word to her that was not kind and just. and gentle. Considering the relation between them, he thought himself justified in remonstrating with her as to the conduct which he chose to pursue, and in warning her against acquaintances of whom his own experience had taught him the dangerous character. He knew Madame d'Evry and her friends so well that he would not have his wife elect a member of their circle. He could not tell Ethel what he knew of those women and their history. She chose not to understand his hints, did not, very likely, comprehend them. She was quite young, and the stories of such lives as theirs had never been told before her.
She was indignant at the surveillance which Lord Q exerted over her, and the authority which he began to assume. At another moment, and in a better frame of mind, she would have been thankful for his care, and very soon and ever after she did justice to his many admirable qualities—his frankness, honesty, and sweet temper. Only her high spirit was in perpetual revolt at this time against the bondage in which her family strove to keep her. The very worldly advantages of the position which they offered her served but to chafe her the more. Had her proposed husband been a young prince with a crown to lay at her feet, she had been yet more indignant, very likely, and more rebellious. Had Q's younger brother been her suitor, or Q in his place, she had been not unwilling to follow her parents' wishes.
Hence the revolt in which she was engaged. The wayward freaks and outbreaks her haughty temper indulged in. No doubt she saw the justice of Lord Q's reproofs. That self-consciousness was not likely to add to her good humor. No doubt she was sorry for having shown, Lord Q, the letter the moment after she had done that act, of which the poor young lady could not calculate the consequences that were now to ensue. Lord Q, on glancing over the letter, At once divined the quarter whence it came. The portrait drawn of him was not unlike, as our characters described by those who hate us are not unlike. He had passed a reckless youth. Indeed, he was sad and ashamed of that past life, longed, like the poor prodigal, to return to better courses, and had embraced eagerly the chance afforded him of a union with a woman young, virtuous, and beautiful.
Against whom, and against heaven, he hoped to sin no more. If we had told or hinted at more of this story than will please the ear of modern conventionalism. I beseech the reader to believe that the writer's purpose at least is not dishonest, nor unkindly. The young gentleman hung his head with sorrow over that sad detail of his life and its follies. What would he have given to be able to say to Ethel? This is not true. His reproaches to Miss Newcomb, of course, were at once stopped by this terrible assault on himself. The letter had been put in the Biden post office, and so had come to its destination. It was in a disguised handwriting. Lord Q could form no idea even of the sex of the scribe.
He put the envelope in his pocket when Ethel's back was turned. He examined the paper when he left her. He could make little of the superscription or of the wafer which had served to close the note. He did not choose to caution Ethel as to whether she should burn the letter or divulge it to her friends. He took a share of the pain, as a boy at school takes his flogging stoutly and in silence. When he saw Ethel again, which he did in an hour's time, the generous young gentleman held his hand out to her. "'My dear,' he said, "'if you had loved me, you never would have shown me that letter. It was his only reproof. After that he never again reproved or advised her. Ethel blushed. "'You are very brave and generous, Frank,' said, bending her head.
And I am captious and wicked. He felt the hot tear blotting on his hand from his cousin's downcast eyes. He kissed her little hand. Lady Anne, who was in the room with her children when these few words passed between the two in a very low tone, thought it was a reconciliation. Ethel knew it was a renunciation on Q's part. She never liked him so much as at that moment. The young man was too modest and simple to guess himself what the girl's feelings were. Could he have told them, his fate and hers might have been changed. "'You must not allow our kind letter-writing friend,' Lord Q continued, "'to fancy we are hurt. We must walk out this afternoon, and we must appear very good friends.' "'Yes, always, Q,' said Ethel, holding out her hand again.
The next minute, her cousin was at the table, carving roast fowls, and distributing the portions to the hungry children. The assembly of the previous evening had been one of those which the fermier des Jeux at Baden beneficently provides for the frequenters of the place, and now was to come off a much more brilliant entertainment. In which poor Clive, who was far into Switzerland by this time, was to have taken a share. The bachelors had agreed to give a ball, one of the last entertainments of the season. A dozen or more of them had subscribed the funds, and we may be sure Lord Q's name was at the head of the list, as it was of any list, of any scheme, whether of charity or fun. The English were invited.
And the Russians were invited, the Spaniards and Italians, Poles, Prussians, and Hebrews, all the motley frequenters of the place, and the warriors in the Duke of Baden's army. Unlimited supper was set in the restaurant, the dancing room glittered with extra lights, and a profusion of cut paper flowers decorated the festive scene. Everybody was present, those crowds with whom our story has nothing to do, and those two or three groups of persons who enact minor or greater parts in it. Madame D'Evry came in a dress of stupendous splendor, even more brilliant than that in which Miss Ethel had figured at the last assembly. If the Duchess intended to ecraser Miss Newcombe by the superior magnificence of her toilette, she was disappointed.
Miss Newcombe wore a plain white frock on that occasion, and resumed, Madame D'Every said, her role of ingenue for that night. During the brief season in which gentlemen enjoyed the favor of Mary, Queen of Scots, that wandering sovereign led them through all the paces and vagaries of a regular passion. As an affair, where time is short and pleasure numerous, the master of the theatrical booth shows you a tragedy, a farce, and a pantomime, all in a quarter of an hour. Having a dozen new audiences to witness his entertainments in the course of the forenoon. So this lady with her platonic lovers went through the complete dramatic course. Tragedies of jealousy, pantomimes of rapture, and farces of parting.
There were billets on one side and the other. Hints of a fatal destiny. And a ruthless, lynx-eyed tyrant who held a demoniac grasp over the Duchess by means of certain secrets which he knew. They were regrets that we had not known each other sooner. Why were we brought out of our convent and sacrificed to Monsieur Le Duc? There were frolic interchangers of fancy and poesy, pretty boudoirs, sweet reconciliations. Yawns, finally, and separation. Adolph went out and Alphonse came in. It was the new audience for which the bell rang, the band played, and the curtain rose, and the tragedy, comedy, and farce were repeated. Those Greenwich performers who appear in the theatrical pieces above mentioned make a great deal more noise than your stationary tragedians.
And if they had to denounce a villain, to declare a passion, or to threaten an enemy, they roar, stamp, shake their fists, and brandish their sabres, so that every man who sees the play has surely a full penny worth for his penny. Thus, Madame la Duchesse d'Avery, perhaps a little exaggerated her heroine's parts, liking to strike her audiences quickly. and also to change them often. Like good performers, she flung herself heart and soul into the business of the stage, and was what she acted. She was Phaedra, and if in that first part of the play she was uncommonly tendered to Hippolyte, in the second she hated him furiously. She was Medea, and if Jason was Volage, woe to Krusa. Perhaps our poor Lord Q had taken the first character in a performance with Madame D'Evry, for his behavior in which part it was difficult enough to forgive him.
But when he appeared at Baden, the affianced husband of one of the most beautiful and young creatures in Europe, when his relatives scorned Madame D'Evry, no wonder she was maddened and enraged, and would have recourse to revenge, steal, poison. There was in the Duchess's court a young fellow from the south of France, whose friends had sent him to Favre-en-Droit, at Paris, where he had gone through the usual course of pleasure in studies of the young inhabitants of the Latin Quarter. He had, at one time, exalted Republican opinions, and had fired his shot with distinction at Sainte-Marie. He was a poet of some little note. A book of his lyrics, Les Roses, Dune Aphyxier, having made a sensation at the time of their appearance.
He drank great quantities of absinthe of a morning, smoked incessantly, played roulette whenever he could get a few pieces, contributed to a small journal, and was especially great in his hatred of La Femme Angleterre. Delando Est-Cathargo was tattooed beneath his shirt-sleeves. Fafine and Clarice, young milliners of the Students District, had punctured this terrible motto on his manly right arm. Leopard, emblem of England, was his aversion. He shook his fist at the caged monster in the garden of plants. He desired to have, here lies, an enemy of England, engraved upon his early tomb. He was skilled at billiards and dominoes, adroit in the use of arms, of unquestionable courage and fierceness.
Mr. Jones of England was afraid of Monsieur de Castellanis, and cowered before his scowls and sarcasms. Captain Blackwall, the other English aide-de-camp of the Duchess d'Evry, a warrior of undoubted courage who had been on the ground more than once, gave him a wide berth, and wondered what the little beggar meant when he used to say, Since the days of the Prince Noir, Monsieur, my family has been at feud with Languterre. His family were grocers at Bordeaux. And his father's name was Monsieur Cabas. He had married a noble in the revolutionary times, and the son at Paris called himself Victor Cabas de Castellones, then Victor C. de Castellones, then Monsieur de Castellones. One of the followers of the Black Prince had insulted a lady of the House of Castellones when the English were lords of Gouin.
Hence our friend's wrath against the Leopard. He had written, and afterwards dramatized a terrific legend describing the circumstances and the punishment of the Briton by a knight of the Castelloni's family. A more awful coward never existed in a melodrama than that felon English knight. His blanche Fia, of course, died of hopeless love for the conquering Frenchman, her father's murderer. The paper in which the full-word talent appeared died at the sixth number of the story. The theater at the boulevard refused the drama, so the author's rage against L'Enfant-Albion was yet unappeased. On beholding Miss Newcomb, Victor had fancied a resemblance between her and Agnes de Clovelly, the blanche miss of his novel and drama.
and cast an eye of favor upon the young creature. He even composed verses in her honor, for I presume that the Miss Petit and the Princess Crimhilda of the poems, which he subsequently published, were no other than Miss Newcomb and the Duchess, her rival. He had been one of the lucky gentlemen who had danced with Ethel on the previous evening. On the occasion of the ball, he came to her with a high-flown compliment, and a request to be once more allowed to waltz with her, a request to which he expected a favorable answer, thinking, no doubt, that his wit, his powers of conversation, and the amour qui flambe dans ce regard had had their effect upon the charming Mies. Perhaps, He had a copy of the very verses in his breast pocket, with which he intended to complete his work of fascination.
For her sake alone, he had been heard to say that he would enter into a truce with England, and forget the hereditary wrongs of his race. But the Blanche Miss, on this evening, declined to waltz with him. His compliments were not of the least avail. He retired with them and his unuttered verses in his crumpled bosom. Miss Newcomb only danced in one quadrille with Lord Q, and left the party quite early, to the despair of many of the bachelors, who lost the fairest ornament of their ball. Lord Q, however, had been seen walking with her in public, and particularly attended to her during her brief appearance in the ballroom, and the old dowager, who regularly attended all places of amusement, and was at twenty parties and six dinners the week before she died, thought fit to be particularly gracious to Madame Divray upon this evening, and, far from shunning the Duchess's presence or being rude to her, as, on former occasions, was entirely smiling and good-humored.
Lady Q, too, thought there had been a reconciliation between Ethel and her cousin. Lady Anne had given her mother some account of the hand-shaking. Q's walk with Ethel, the quadrille, which he had danced with him alone, induced the elder lady to believe that matters had been made up between the young people. So, by way of showing the Duchess that her little shot of the morning had failed in its effect, As Frank left the room with his cousin, Lady Q gaily hinted that the young girl was au petit sou with Miss Ethel, that she was sure her old friend, the Duc d'Evry, would be glad to hear that his godson was about to range himself. He would settle down on his estates. He would attend to his duties as an English peer and a country gentleman.
We shall go home, says the benevolent countess, and kill the vaugras, and you shall see our dear prodigal will become a very quiet gentleman. The Duchess said, My Lady Q's plan was most edifying. She was charmed to hear that Lady Q loved veal. There were some who thought that meat rather insipid. A waltzer came to claim her hand at this moment, and as she twirled round the room upon that gentleman's arm, wafting odors as she moved, her pink silks, pink feathers, pink ribbons, making a mighty rustling. The Countess of Kew had the satisfaction of thinking that she had planted an arrow in that shriveled little waist, which Count Punter's arm embraced, and had returned the stab which Madame d'Evry had delivered in the morning.
Mr. Barnes and his elect bride had also appeared, danced, and disappeared. Lady Q soon followed her young ones, and the ball went on very gaily, in spite of the absence of these respectable personages. Being one of the managers of the entertainment, Lord Q returned to it after conducting Lady Anne and her daughter to their carriage, and now danced with great vigor and with his usual kindness, selecting those ladies whom other waltzes rejected because they were too old or too plain. or too stout, or what not. But he did not ask Madame d'Avery to dance. He could condescend to dissemble so far as to hide the pain which he felt, but did not care to engage in that more advanced hypocrisy of friendship, which, for her part, his old grandmother had not shown the least scruple in assuming.
Amongst other partners, my lord selected that intrepid waltzer, the Graffin van Grumpelheim, who, in spite of her age, size, and large family, never lost a chance of enjoying her favorite recreation. "'Look with what a camel my lord waltzes,' said Monsieur Victor to Madame D'Evry, whose slim waist he had the honor of embracing to the same music. What man but an Englishman would ever select such a dromedary? Avant d'erce, Maria, said Madame d'Ivry. Il faut avoir vu que, my lord, se pernette des normes d'istractions. My lord marries himself, and when and whom, cried the Duchess's partner. Miss Newcomb, do you not approve of his choice? I thought the eyes of Stenio, the Duchess called Monsieur Victor, Stenio, looked with some favor upon that little person.
She is handsome, even very handsome. Is it not so often in life, Steniel? Are not youth and innocence? I give Miss Ethel the compliment of her innocence. Now, sir, too, that the little painter is dismissed. Are we not cast into the arms of jaded roues? Tender young flowers. Are we not torn from our convent gardens, and flung into a world of which the air poisons our pure life, and withers the sainted buds of hope and love and faith? Faith, the mocking world, tramples on it, n'est-ce pas? Love, the brutal world, strangles the heaven-born infant at its birth. Hope, it smiled at me in my little convent chamber. Played among the flowers which I cherished, warbled with the birds that I loved, but it quitted me at the door of the world, Stenio.
It folded its white wings and veiled its radiant face. In return for my young love, they gave me, sixty years, the dregs of a selfish heart, egotism cowering over its fire, and cold for all its mantle of ermine. In place of the sweet flowers of my young years, they gave me these, Stenio, and he pointed to her feathers and her artificial roses. Oh, I should like to crush them under my feet, and she put out the neatest little slipper. The Duchess was great upon her wrongs, and paraded her blighted innocence to everyone who would feel interested by that piteous spectacle. The music here burst out more swiftly and melodiously than before. The pretty little feet forgot their desire to trample upon the world.
She shrugged the lean little shoulders. Eh, said the Queen of Scots, dançons et oublions. And Stenio's arm once more surrounded her fairy waist. She called herself a fairy. Other ladies called her a skeleton. And they whirled away in the waltz again, and presently she and Stenio came bumping up against the stalwart Lord Q and the ponderous Madame de Gumpelheim, as a worry gashes against the oaken ribs of a steamer. The little couple did not fall. They were struck on to a neighboring bench. Luckily, But there was a laugh at the expense of Stenio and the Queen of Scots, and Lord Q, settling his panting partner onto a seat, came up to make excuses for his awkwardness to the lady who had been its victim.
At the laugh, produced by the catastrophe, the Duchess's eyes gleamed with anger. Monsieur de Castelloni, she said to her partner, have you had any quarrel with the Englishman? With Saint Maloë? But no," said Stenio. He did it on purpose. There has been no day, but his family has insulted me, his daughter, the Duchess. And at this moment, Lord Q came up to make his apologies. He asked a thousand pardons, Madame the Duchess, for being so maladroit. "'Maledroid. Et très maledroit, monsieur,' says Stenio, curling his mustache. "'C'est bien la mort, monsieur.' "'Also, I make my excuses to Madame la Duchesse, "'which I hope she will receive,' said Lord Q.' "'The Duchesse shrugged her shoulders and sunk her head.
"'When one does not know how to dance, "'one ought not to dance,' continued the Duchess's night." "'Monsieur, it is very good to give me lessons in dancing,' said Lord Q. "'Any lessons would you please, my lord,' cries Stenio, "'and everywhere where you will them.'" Lord Q. looked at the little man with surprise. He could not understand so much anger for so trifling an accident, which happens a dozen times at every crowded ball. He again bowed to the duchess and walked away. "'This is your Englishman, your Q, whom you vaunt everywhere,' said Steniel to Monsieur de Florac, who was standing by and witnessed the scene. Is he simply Bet, or is he Poltroon as well? I believe him to be both.' "'Silence, Victor,' cried Florac, seizing his arm and drawing him away.
"'You know me, and that I am neither one nor the other.' Believe, my word, that my lord Q. wants neither courage nor wit. Will you be my witness, Florac, continues the other. To take him your excuses? Yes, it is you who have insulted. Yes, parver, I have insulted, says the Gascon. A man who never willingly offended its soul alive. A man full of heart, the most frank, the most loyal. I have seen him put to the proof, and believe me, he is all I say. "'Eh, so much the better for me,' cried the Southern. "'I shall have the honor of meeting a gallant man, and there will be two on the field.' "'They are making a tool of you, my poor Gascon,' said Monsieur de Florac, who saw Madame D'Ebris' eyes watching the couple.
She presently took the arm of the noble counterpart and went for fresh air into the adjoining apartment, where play was going on as usual, and Lord Q and his friend Lord Rooster were pacing the room apart from the gamblers. My Lord Rooster, at something which Q said, looked puzzled and said, "'Prew stuff, damned little Frenchman. Confounded nonsense!' "'I was searching you, m'lors,' said Madame D'Evry, in a most winning tone, tripping behind him with her noiseless little feet. "'Allow me a little word. Your arm. You used to give it to me once, Monfils. I hope you think nothing of the rudeness of Monsieur de Castelloni's. He is a foolish Gascon. He must have been too often to the buffet this evening.' Lord Q.
said. No, indeed. He thought nothing of de Castelloni's rudeness. I am so glad. These heroes of the Salle d'Armes have not the commonest manners. These Gascons are always flambeuge en vent. What would the charming Miss Ethel say, if she heard of the dispute? Indeed, there is no reason why she should hear of it, said Lord Q. "'Unless some obliging friend should communicate it to her.' "'Communicate it to her, the poor dear! Who would be so cruel as to give her pain?' asked the innocent Duchess. "'Why do you look at me so frank?' "'Because I admire you,' said her interlocutor, with a bow. "'I have never seen Madame the Duchess to such advantage as to-day.' "'You speak in enigmas. Come back with me to the ballroom.
Come and dance with me once more. You used to dance with me. Let us have one waltz more, Q. And then, and then, in a day or two, I shall go back to Monsieur Le Duc and tell him that his filou is going to marry the fairest of all English women and to turn hermit in the country, an orator in the chamber of peers. You have wit.' "'Ah, see, you have wit.' And she led back Lord Q, rather amazed himself at what he was doing into the ballroom, so that the good-natured people who were there, and who beheld them dancing, could not refrain from clapping their hands at the sight of this couple. The Duchess danced as if she was bitten by that Neapolitan spider which, according to the legend, is such a wonderful dancing center.
She would have the music quicker and quicker. She sank on Q's arm and clung on his support. She poured out all the light of her languishing eyes into his face. The glances rather confused then charmed him. But the bystanders were pleased. They thought it so good-hearted of the Duchess, after the little quarrel, to make a public avowal of reconciliation. Lord Brewster, looking on, at the entrance of the dancing room, over Monsieur de Florac's shoulder, said, "'It's all right. She's a clipper to dance, the little duchess.' "'The viper,' said Florac. "'How she wise!' "'I suppose our business with the Frenchman is all over,' said Lord Brewster, confounded piece of nonsense. "'You believe it finished?' "'We shall see,' said Florac, who perhaps knew his fair cousin better.
When the waltz was over, Q led his partner to his seat and bowed to her, but though she made room for him at her side, pointing to it, and gathering up her rustling robes so that he might sit down, he moved away, his face full of gloom. He never wished to be near her again. There was something more odious to him in her friendship than her hatred. He knew hers was the hand that had dealt that stab at him at Ethel in the morning. He went back and talked with his two friends in the doorway. "'Couch yourself, my little Q,' said Larac. "'You are all pale. You were best in bed, mon garçon.' "'She has made me promise to take her in to Suffolk,' said with a sigh. "'She will poison you,' said the other.
"'Why have they abolished the Roucher-Nu?' "'My word of honor. They should re-tablige it for this woman.' "'There is one in the next room,' said Q with a laugh. Come, Viscount, let us try our fortune, and he walked into the playroom. That was the last night on which Lord Q ever played a gambling game. He won constantly. The double zero seemed to obey him, so that the croupiers wondered at his fortune. Fleurac backed it, saying with the superstition of a gambler, I am sure something goes to arrive to this boy. From time to time, Monsieur de Fleurac Went back to the dancing room, leaving his niece under Q's charge. He always found his heaps increased. Indeed, the worthy Viscount wanted a turn of luck in his favor.
On one occasion, he returned with a grave face, saying to Lord Rooster, She has the other one in hand. We are going to see. Troncic encore. A rouge gagné, cried the croupier with his nasal tone. Monsieur de Fleuroc's pockets overflowed with double Napoleon's, and he stopped his play. Luckily, for Q, putting down his winnings, once, twice, thrice, lost them all. When Lord Q had left the dancing-room, Madame D'Evry saw Stenio following him with fierce looks, and called back that bearded bard. "'You were going to pursue, Monsieur de Q,' she said. "'I knew you would.' Sit down here, sir, and she patted him down on her seat with her fan. Do you wish that I should call him back, madame, said the poet, with the deepest tragic accents?
I can bring him when I want him, Victor said the lady. Let us hope others will be equally fortunate, the Gascon said, with one hand in his breast, the other stroking his mustache.
Je vous le défends, entendez-vous, monsieur? Portant, I have seen the day when Madame la Duchesse did not disdain a cigar, said Victor, if the odor incommodes, permit that I retire. And you also would quit me, Sternio? Do you think I do not mark your eyes towards Miss Newcomb? Your anger when she refused you to dance. Ah, we see all. "'A woman does not deceive herself, do you see? "'You send me beautiful verses, poet. "'You can write as well of a statue or a picture, "'of a rose or a sunset, "'as of the heart of a woman. "'You were angry just now "'because I danced with Monsieur de Q. "'Do you think in a woman's eyes "'jealousy is unpardonable?' "'You know how to provoke it, Madame,' "'continued the Tredidian.
Monsieur," replied the lady with dignity,," am I to render you an account of all my actions, and ask your permission for a walk? In fact, I am but the slave, Madame, gronde de Gascon. I am not the master. You are a very rebellious slave, Monsieur, continues the lady, with a pretty mew, and a glance of the large eyes artfully brightened by her rouge. Suppose, suppose I danced with Monsieur de Q. Not for his sake. Heaven knows to dance with him is not a pleasure, but for yours. Suppose I do not want a foolish quarrel to proceed. Suppose I know that he is Nisseau de Paltron, as you pretend. I overheard you, sir, talking with one of the basest of men, my good cousin, Monsieur de Florac. But it is not of him I speak.
Suppose I know the comte de Kieu to be a man, cold and insolent, ill-bred, and grossier, as the men of his nation are, but one who lacks no courage, one who is terrible when roused. Might I have no occasion to fear, not for him but. But for me? Ah, Marie! Ah, Madame! Believe you! "'That a man of my blood will yield a foot to any Englishman. "'Do you know the story of my race? "'Do you know that since my childhood "'I have vowed hatred to that nation? "'Tenay, madame, "'this Monsieur Jones who frequents your salon. "'It was but respect for you "'that has enabled me to keep my patience "'with this stupid islander. "'This Captain Blackball, whom you distinguish, "'who certainly shoots well. who mounts well to horse.
I have always thought his manners were those of the marker of a billiard, but I respect him because he has made war with Don Carlos against English. But this young Monsieur de Q, his laugh crisped me the nerves. His insolent air makes me bound. In beholding him, I said to myself, I hate you. Think whether I love him better after having seen him, as I did but now, Madame. Also, but this Victor did not say. He thought Q had laughed at him at the beginning of the evening, when the blanche miss had refused to dance with him. Ah, Victor, it is not him, but you that I would save, said the Duchess. And the people round about, and the Duchess herself afterwards said. Yes, certainly, she had a good heart.
She entreated Lord Q. She implored Monsieur Victor. She did everything in her power to appease the quarrel between him and the Frenchman. After the ball came the supper, which was laid at separate little tables, where parties of half a dozen enjoyed themselves. Lord Q was of the Duchess's party, where our Gascon friend had not a seat. But being one of the managers of the entertainment, his lordship went about from table to table, seeing that the guests at each lacked nothing. He supposed, too, that the dispute with the Gascon had possibly come to an end. At any rate, disagreeable as the other's speech had been, he had resolved to put up with it, not having the least inclination to drink the Frenchman's blood, or to part with his own on so absurd a quarrel.
He asked people in his good-natured way to drink wine with him, and catching Monsieur Victor's eye, scowling at him from a distant table, he sent a waiter with a champagne bottle to his late opponent, and lifted his glass as a friendly challenge. The waiter carried the message to Monsieur Victor, who, when he heard it, turned up his glass, and folded his arms in a stately manner. Monsieur de Castelloni's de Quilles refused, my lord, said the waiter, rather scared. He charged me to bring that message to my lord. Floric ran across to the angry Gascon. It was not while, at Madame D'Vrie's table, that Lord Q sent his challenge and received his reply. His duties as steward had carried him away from that pretty early.
Meanwhile, The glimmering dawn peered into the windows of the refreshment room, and behold, the sun broke in and scared all the revelers. The ladies scurried away like so many ghosts at Cockrow, some of them not caring to face that detective luminary. Cigars had been lighted ere this. The men remained smoking them, with those sleepless German waiters still bringing fresh supplies of drink. Lord Q gave the Duchess to his arm, and was leading her out. Monsieur de Castelloni stood scowling directly in their way, upon which, with rather an abrupt turn of the shoulder and a pardon, Monsieur, Lord Q pushed by, and conducted the Duchess to her carriage. She did not in the least see what had happened between the two gentlemen in the passage.
She ogled and nodded, and kissed her hands quite affectionately to Q, as the fly drove away. Florak, in the meanwhile, had seized his compatriot, who had drunk champagne copiously with others, if not with Q, and was in vain endeavoring to make him hear reason. The Gascon was furious. He vowed that Lord Q had struck him. By the tomb of my mother, he bellowed. I swear I will have his blood. Lord Rooster was bawling out. Key him. Carry him to bed and shut him up, which remarks Victor did not understand, or two victims would doubtless have been sacrificed on his mamma's mausoleum. When Q came back, as he was only too sure to do, the little Gascon rushed forward with a glove in his hand, And having an audience of smokers round about him, made a furious speech about England, leopards, cowardice, insolent islanders, and Napoleon at St.
Helena, and demanded reason for Q's conduct during the night. As he spoke, he advanced towards Lord Q, glove in hand, and lifted it, as if he was actually going to strike. There is no need for further words, said Lord Q. Taking his cigar out of his mouth, if you don't drop that glove, upon my word I will pitch you out of the window. Ha! Pick the man up, somebody. You'll be a witness, gentlemen. I couldn't help myself. If he wants me in the morning, he knows where to find me. I declare that my Lord Q has acted with great forbearance, and under the most brutal provocation. The most brutal provocation. Attendez-vous, Monsieur Cabas, cried out Monsieur de Florac, rushing forward to the Cascon, who had now risen.
Monsieur's conduct has been unworthy of a Frenchman and a gallant homme. "'Diet, he has had it on his knob, though,' said Lord Viscount Brewster, laconically. "'Aro, sir. Ceci n'est pas pour rien.' Fleurak cried sadly, as they both walked away with Lord Q. I wish that first blood was all that was to be shed in this quarrel. Gah! How did he go down? cried Rooster, convulsed with laughter. I am very sorry for it, said Q quite seriously. I couldn't help it. God forgive me. And he hung down his head. He thought of the past and its levities, and punishment coming after his pet Claude. It was with all his heart the contrite young man said, God forgive me. He would take what was to follow as the penalty of what had gone before.
Palais de Hoc, Volnaire, Palais de Molot, mon pauvre qu'il, said his French friend, and Lord Rooster, whose classical education had been much neglected, turned round and said, Hello, mate. What ship's that? Viscount Rooster had not been two hours in bed when the Count de Pontaire, formerly of the Black Jaegers, waited upon him upon the part of Monsieur de Castelloni's and the Earl of Kew, who had referred him to the Viscount to arrange matters for a meeting between them. As the meeting must take place out of the Baden territory, and they ought to move before the police prevented them, The Count proposed that they should at once make for France, where, as it was an affair of honor, they would assuredly be let to enter without passports.
Lady Anne and Lady Q heard that the gentlemen, after the ball, had all gone out on a hunting party, and were not alarmed for four-and-twenty hours at least. On the next day, none of them returned, and on the day after, The family heard that Lord Q. had met with rather a dangerous accident, but all the town knew he had been shot by Monsieur de Castelloni's on one of the islands on the Rhine, opposite Kell, where he was now lying.
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35 35 - Chapter 35: Across the Alps 23:17
XXXV.
Across the Alps.
Our discursive muse must now take her place in the little Britska in which Clive Newcomb and his companions are travelling. And cross the Alps in that vehicle, beholding the snows on St. Gotthard, and the beautiful region through which the Ticino rushes on its way to the Lombard Lakes, and the corn-covered great plains of the Milanese, and that royal city, with the cathedral for its glittering crown, only less magnificent than the imperial dome of Rome. I have some long letters from Mr. Clive, written during this youthful tour, every step of which from the departure at Baden to the gate of Milan, he describes as beautiful, and doubtless the delightful scenes through which the young man went had their effect in soothing any private annoyances with which his journey commenced.
The aspect of nature in that fortunate route which he took is so noble and cheering that our private affairs and troubles Shrink away abashed before that serene splendor. Oh, sweet, peaceful scene of azure lake and snow-crowned mountain! So wonderfully lovely is your aspect that it seems like heaven almost, and as if grief and care could not enter it. What young Clive's private cares were I knew not, as yet, in those days, and he kept them out of his letters. It was only in the intimacy of future life that some of these pains were revealed to me. Some three months after taking leave of Miss Ethel, our young gentleman found himself at Rome with his friend Ridley, still for a companion. Many of us, young or middle-aged, have felt that delightful shock which the first sight of the great city inspires.
There is one other place of which the view strikes one with an emotion even greater than that with which we look at Rome, where Augustus was reigning when he saw the day, whose birthplace is separated, but by a hill, or two, from the awful gates of Jerusalem. Who that has beheld both can forget that first aspect of either? At the end of years the emotion occasioned by the sight still thrills in your memory, and it smites you as at the moment when you first viewed it. The business of the present novel, however, lies neither with priest nor pagan, but with Mr. Clive Newcomb, and his affairs, and his companions at this period of his life. Nor, if the gracious reader expects to hear of cardinals in scarlet and noble Roman princes and princesses, will he find such in this history.
The only noble Roman into whose mansion our friend got admission was the Prince Polonia, whose footmen wear the liveries of the English royal family, who gives gentlemen and even painters cash upon good letters of credit, and once or twice in a season opens his transtipurine palace and treats his customers to a ball. Our friend Clive used jocularly to say he believed there were no Romans. There were priests in portentous hats. There were friars with shaven crowns. There were the sham peasantry, who dressed themselves out in masquerade costumes with bagpipe and goatskin, with crossed leggings and scarlet petticoats, who let themselves out to artists at so many polls per sitting. But he never passed a Roman's door, except to buy a cigar or to purchase a handkerchief.
Thither, as elsewhere, we carry our insular habits with us. We have a little England at Paris, a little England at Munich, Dresden, everywhere. Our friend is an Englishman, and did at Rome, as the English do. There was the polite English society, the society that flocks to see the Colosseum lighted up with blue fire, that flocks to the Vatican to behold the statues by torchlight, that hustles into the churches on public festivals in black veils and deputy lieutenants' uniforms, and stares and talks and uses opera-glasses while the pontiffs of the Roman Church are performing its ancient rites, and the crowds of faithful are kneeling round the altars. The society which gives its balls and dinners has its scandal and bickerings, its aristocrats, Toadies, imported from Belgravia, has its club, its hunt, and its hide-park on the Pinchio.
And there is the other little English world, the broad-hatted, long-bearded, velvet-jacketed, jovial colony of the artists, who have their own feasts, haunts, and amusements by the side of their aristocratic compatriots, with whom but few of them have the honor to mingle. J. J. and Clive engaged pleasant lofty apartments in the Via Gregoriana. Generations of painters had occupied these chambers and gone their way. The windows of their painting-room looked into a quaint old garden, where there were ancient statues of the imperial time, a babbling fountain and noble orange-trees, with broad clustering leaves and golden balls of fruit, glorious to look upon. Their walks abroad were endlessly pleasant and delightful.
In every street there were scores of pictures of the graceful, characteristic Italian life, which our painters seem one and all to reject, preferring to depict their quack brigands, Contadini, Pifferari, and the like, because Thomson painted them before Jones, and Jones before Thomson, and so on, backwards into time. There were the children at play, the women huddled round the steps of the open doorways in the kindly Roman winter, grim, portentous old hags such as Michelangelo painted, draped in majestic raggery, mothers and swarming bambans, slouching countrymen, dark of beard and noble of countenance, posed in superb attitudes, lazy, tattered, and majestic. There came the red troops, the black troops, the blue troops of the army of priests, The snuffy regiments of Capuchins, grave and grotesque.
The trim French abbays, my lord the bishop, with his footmen, those wonderful footmen. My lord the cardinal, in his ramshackle coach and his two, nay, three footmen behind him. Flunkies, that look as if they'd been dressed by the costumier of a British pantomime. Coach, with prodigious emblazonments of hats and coats of arms that seems as if it came out of the pantomime too, and was about to turn into something else. So it is, that what is grand to some persons' eyes appears grotesque to others, and for certain sceptical persons that step which we've heard of between the sublime and the ridiculous is not visible. "'I wish it were not so,' writes Clive in one of the letters wherein he used to pour his full heart out in those days.
I see these people at their devotions, and envy them their rapture. A friend who belongs to the old religion took me last week into a church, where the Virgin lately appeared in a person, to a Jewish gentleman, flashed down upon him from heaven in light and splendor celestial, and of course straightway converted him. My friend bade me look at the picture, and kneeling down beside me, I know, prayed with all his honest heart that the truth might shine down upon me too, But I saw no glimpse of heaven at all. I saw but a poor picture, an altar with blinking candles, a church hung with tawdry strips of red and white calico. The good, kind W. went away humbly saying that such might have happened again if heaven so willed it.
I could not but feel a kindness and admiration for the good man. I know his works are made to square with his faith, that he dines on a crust, lives as chaste as a hermit, and gives his all. Our friend J.J., very different to myself in so many respects, so superior in all, is immensely touched by these ceremonies. They seem to answer to some spiritual want of his nature, and he comes away satisfied as from a feast, where I have only found vacancy. Of course our first pilgrimage was to St. Peter's. What a walk! Under what noble shadows does one pass? How great and liberal the houses are, with generous casements and courts, and great gray portals which giants might get through and keep their turbans on.
Why, the houses are twice as tall as Lamb Court itself, and over them hangs a noble dinge, a venerable moldy splendor. Over the solemn portals are ancient mystic escutcheons, vast shields of princes and cardinals, such as Ariosto's knights might take down, and every figure about them is a picture by himself. At every turn there is a temple. In every court a brawling fountain. Besides the people of the streets and houses, and the army of priests black and brown, there's a great silent population of marble. There are battered gods, tumbled out of Olympus, and broken in the fall, and set up under niches and over fountains. There are senators namelessly, noiselessly, noiselessly seated under archways, or lurking in courts and gardens.
And then, besides these defunct ones, of whom these old figures may be said to be the corpses, there is the reigning family, a countless carved hierarchy of angels, saints, confessors of the latter dynasty, which has conquered the court of Jove. I say, Penn, I wish Warrington would write the history of the last of the pagans. Did you never have a sympathy for them as the monks came rushing into their temples, kicking down their poor altars, smashing the fair, calm faces of their gods, and sending their vestals a-flying? They're always preaching here about the persecution of the Christians. Are not the churches full of martyrs with choppers in their meek heads, virgins on gridirons, riddled St.
Sebastians and the like? But have they never persecuted in their turn? Oh, me! You and I know better, who were bred up near to the pens of Smithfield, where Protestants and Catholics have taken their turn to be roasted. You pass through an avenue of angels and saints on the bridge across Tiber, all in action, their great wings seem clanking, their marble garments clapping. St. Michael, descending upon the fiend, has been caught and bronzified just as he lighted on the castle of St. Angelo. His enemy, doubtless, fell, crushing through the roof, and so downwards. He is as natural as blank verse, that bronze angel set, rhythmic, grandiose. You'll see, some day or other. He's a great sonnet, sir, I'm sure of that.
Milton wrote in bronze. I'm sure Virgil polished off his georgics in marble. Sweet, calm shapes, exquisite harmonies of line. As for the Aeneid, that, sir, I consider to be so many bas-reliefs. Mural ornaments which affect me, not much. I think I've lost sight of St. Peter's, haven't I? Yet it is big enough, how it makes your heart beat when you first see it. Ours did, as we came in at night from Kivita Vecchia, and saw a great ghostly darkling dome rising solemnly up into the grey night, and keeping us company ever so long as we drove, as if it had been an orb fallen out of heaven, with its light put out. As you look at it from the Pincio, and the sun sets behind it, surely that aspect of earth and sky is one of the grandest in the world.
I don't like to say that the facade of the church is ugly and obtrusive. As long as the dome overawes, that facade is supportable. You advance towards it. through, O such a noble court, with fountains flashing up to meet the sunbeams, and right and left of you two sweeping half-crescents of great columns. But you pass by the courtiers, and up to the steps of the throne, and the dome seems to disappear behind it. It is as if the throne was upset, and the king had toppled over. There must be moments in Rome, especially when every man of friendly heart, who writes himself English and Protestant, must feel a pang at thinking that he and his countrymen are insulated from European Christendom. An ocean separates us.
From one shore or the other, one can see the neighbor cliffs on clear days. One must wish sometimes that there were no stormy gulf between us, and from Canterbury to Rome a pilgrim could pass, and not drown beyond Dover. Of the beautiful parts of the Great Mother Church, I believe, among us many people have no idea. We think of lazy friars, of pining cloistered virgins, of ignorant peasants worshipping wood and stones, bought and sold indulgences, absolutions, and the like commonplaces of Protestant satire. Lo, yonder inscription, which blazes round the dome of the temple, so great and glorious it looks like heaven almost, and as if the words were written in stars. It proclaims to all the world, This is that Peter.
And on this rock the church shall be built, against which hell shall not prevail. Under the bronze canopy his throne is lit with lights that have been burning before it for ages. Round this stupendous chamber are ranged the grandees of his court. Faith seems to be realized in their marble figures. Some of them were alive but yesterday. Others, to be blessed as they, walk the world even now, doubtless, and the commissioners of heaven Here holding their court a hundred years hence, shall authoritatively announce their beatification. The signs of their power shall not be wanting. They heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind, cause the lame to walk today as they did eighteen centuries ago. Are there not crowds ready to bear witness to their wonders?
Isn't there a tribunal, appointed to try their claims, advocates to plead for and against? Prelates and clergy, and multitudes of faithful to back and believe them. Thus you shall kiss the hand of a priest to-day, who has given his to a friar, whose bones are already beginning to work miracles, who has been the disciple of another whom the church has just proclaimed a saint. Hand in hand they hold by one another till the line is lost up in heaven. Come, friend, let us acknowledge this, and go and kiss the toe of St. Peter. Alas, there's the channel always between us, and we no more believe in the miracles of St. Thomas of Canterbury than that the bones of His Grace John Byrd, who sits in St. Thomas's chair presently, will work wondrous cures in the year Two Thousand, that his statue will speak, or his portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence will wink.
So you see, at those grand ceremonies, which the Roman Church exhibits at Christmas. I looked on as a Protestant. Holy Father on his throne, or in his palanquin, cardinals with their tails and their train-bearers, mitred bishops and abbots, regiments of friars and clergy, relics exposed for adoration, columns draped, altars illuminated, incense smoking, organs peeling, and boxes of piping soprani. Swiss guards with slashed breeches and fringed halberts. Between us and all this splendor of old-world ceremony there is an ocean flowing, and yonder old statue of Peter might have been Jupiter again, surrounded by a procession of flamens and augurs, and Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, to inspect the sacrifices.
And my feelings at the spectacle had been, doubtless, pretty much the same. Shall I utter any more heresies? I am an unbeliever in Raphael's Transfiguration. The scream of that devil-possessed boy in the lower part of the figure of eight, a stolen boy too, jars the whole music of the composition. On Michelangelo's great wall, the grotesque and terrible are not out of place. What an awful achievement! Fancy the state of mind of the man who worked it as alone day after day he devised and drew those dreadful figures. Suppose, in the ways of the Olympian dynasty, the subdued Titan rebels had been set to ornament a palace for Jove. They would have brought in some such tremendous work. Or suppose that Michael descended to the shades and brought up this picture out of the halls of Limbo.
I like a thousand and a thousand times better. To think of Raphael's loving spirit. As he looked at women and children, his beautiful face must have shone like sunshine. His kind hand must have caressed the sweet figures as he formed them. If I protest against the transfiguration and refuse to worship at that altar before which so many generations have knelt, there are hundreds of others which I salute thankfully. It is not so much in the set harangues, to take another metaphor, as in the daily tones and talk. That his voice is so delicious. Sweet poetry and music, and tender hymns drop from him. He lifts his pencil, and something gracious falls from it on the paper. How noble his mind must have been!
It seems but to receive, and his eye seems only to rest on, what is great and generous and lovely. You walk through crowded galleries, where are pictures ever so large and pretentious, and come upon a grey paper. Or a little fresco, bearing his mark, and over all the brawl and the throng recognize his sweet presence. "'I would like to have been you, Giulio Romano,' J.G. says, who does not care for Giulio's pictures, because then I would have been Raphael's favorite pupil. We agreed that we would rather have seen him and William Shakespeare than all the men we ever read of. Fancy poisoning a fellow out of envy, as Spagnoletto did.' There are some men whose admiration takes that bilious shape. There's a fellow in our mess, at the Lepre, a clever enough fellow, too, and not a bad fellow to the poor.
He was a Gandishite. He is a genre and portrait painter, by the name of Haggard. He hates J. J., because Lord Ferrum, who is here, has given J. J. an order. And he hates me, because I wear a clean shirt, and ride a cock-horse. I wish you could come to our mess at the Lepre. It's such a dinner, such a tablecloth, such a waiter, such a company. Every man has a beard and a sombrero, and you would fancy we were a bunch of brigands. We're regaled with woodcocks, snipes, wild swans, ducks, robins, and owls, and—Greek word from the Iliad—for dinner, and with three palls' worth of wines and victuals, the hungriest has enough. Even Claypole, the sculptor. Did you ever know him? He used to come to the haunt.
He looks like the Saracen's head with his beard now. There's a French table still more hairy than ours, a German table, an American table. After dinner we go and have coffee in Mezzo Caldo at the Café Greco over the way. Mezzo Caldo is not a bad drink, a little rum, a slice of fresh citron, lots of pounded sugar, and boiling water for the rest. Here, in various parts of the cavern, It's a vaulted, low place. The various nations have their assigned quarters, and we drink our coffee in strong waters, and abuse Guido, or Rubens, or Bernini, Salon-Legoux, and blow such a cloud of smoke as would make Warrington's lungs dilate with pleasure. We get very good cigars for a barocco and half. That is very good for us.
Cheap tobacchanalians. And capital, when you have got no others. McCollop is here. He made a great figure at a cardinal's reception in the tartan of the McCullough. He is splendid at the tomb of the Stuarts, and wanted to cleave haggard down to the chine with his claymore for saying that Charles Edward was often drunk. Some of us have our breakfasts at the Café Greco at dawn. The birds are very early birds here, and you'll see the great sculptors—the old Dons, you know—who look down on us, young fellows, at their coffee here when it's yet twilight. As I am a swell and have a servant, J. J. and I breakfast at our lodgings. I wish you could see Terribilet, our attendant, and Atavia, our old woman.
You will see both of them on the canvas one day. When he hasn't blacked our boots and has got our breakfast, Terribilet, the valet de chambre, becomes Terribilet, the model. He has figured on a hundred canvases ere this, and almost ever since he was born. All his family were models. His mother, having been a Venus, is now a witch of Endor. His father is in the patriarchal line. He has himself done the cherubs, the shepherd boys, and now is a grown man, and ready as a warrior, a piferaro, a capuchin, or what you will. After the coffee and the cafe greco, we all go to the Life Academy. After the Life Academy, Those who belong to the world dress and go out to tea-parties, just as if we were in London.
Those who are not in society have plenty of fun of their own, and better fun than the tea-party fun, too. Jack's Gruby has a night once a week, sardines and ham for supper, and a cask of Marsala in the corner. Your humble servant entertains on Thursdays, which is Lady Fitch's night, too, and I flatter myself some of the London dandies who are passing the winter here prefer the cigars and humble liquors which we dispense to tea and Miss Fitch's performance on the pianoforte. What is that I read in Galignani about Lord Kaye and an affair of honour at Baden? Is it my dear kind Jolly Q with whom someone has quarrelled? I know those who would be even more grieved than I am, should anything happen to the best of good fellows.
A great friend of Lord Q's, Jack Belsize commonly called, came with us from Baden through Switzerland, and we left him at Milan. I see by the paper that his elder brother is dead, and so poor Jack will be a great man some day. I wish the chance had happened sooner, if it was to befall at all. So my amiable cousin Barnes Newcomb, Newcomb Esquire, has married my Lady Clara Pulleyne. I wish her joy of her bridegroom. All I have heard of that family is from the newspaper. If you meet them, tell me anything about them. We had a very pleasant time together at Baden. I suppose the accident to Kew will put off his marriage with Miss Newcomb. They have been engaged, you know, ever so long. And do—do write to me and tell me something about London.
It's best I should—should stay here and work this winter and the next. J. J. has done a famous picture, and if I send a couple home, you'll give them a notice in the Palmont Gazette, won't you? For the sake of old times, and yours affectionately, Clive Newcomb. End of section 35. Read by Sandra. Twenty. Twenty. One.
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36 36 - Chapter 36: In which M. de Florac is promoted 37:45
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 36. In which Monsieur de Florac is promoted. However much Madame la Duchesse d'Evry was disposed to admire and praise her own conduct in the affair, which ended so unfortunately for poor Lord Q., between whom, and the Gascon, her grace vowed that she had done everything in her power to prevent a battle. The old duke, her lord, was, it appeared, by no means delighted with his wife's behavior. Nay visited her with his very sternest displeasure. Miss O'Grady, the Duchess's companion, and her little girl's instructress, at this time resigned her functions in the Ifri family. It is possible that in the recriminations, consequent upon the governess's dismissal, The Miss Irlandais, in whom the family had put so much confidence, divulged stories unfavorable to her patroness, and caused the indignation of the Duke, her husband.
Between Florak and the Duchess, there was also open war and rupture. He had been one of Q's seconds in the latter's affair with the Viscount's countrymen. He had even cried out for fresh pistols, and proposed to engage Castellones, when his gallant principal fell. And though a second duel was luckily averted as murderous and needless, Monsieur de Florac never hesitated afterward, and in all companies, to denounce with the utmost virulence the instigator and the champion of the odious original quarrel. He vowed that the Duchess had shot le petit-queue as effectually as if she had herself fired the pistol at his breast. Murderer, Poisoner, Brinvilliers, a hundred more such epithets he used against his kinswoman, regretting that the good old times were past, that there was no chambre ardente to try her, and no rack and wheel to give her her due.
The biographer of the Newcombs has no need, although he possesses the fullest information, to touch upon the Duchess's doings, further than as they relate to that most respectable English family. When the Duke took his wife into the country, Florek never hesitated to say that to live with her was dangerous for the old man. And to cry out to his friends of the boulevards or the jockey club, Do you know, O gentle and us suspicious readers, or have you ever reckoned, as you have made your calculation of society, how many most respectable husbands helped to kill their wives? How many respectable wives aid in sending their husbands to Hades? The wife of a chimney-sweep, or a journeyman butcher, comes shuddering before a police-magistrate, her head bound up, her body scarred and bleeding with wounds, which the drunken ruffian, her lord, has administered.
A poor shopkeeper, a mechanic, is driven out of his home by the furious ill-temper of the shrill virago his wife takes to the public house, to evil courses, to neglecting his business, to the gin bottle, to delirium tremens, to perdition. Bow Street and Policeman. And the newspaper reporters have cognizance in certain jurisdiction over these vulgar matrimonial crimes. But in Politer's company, how many murderous assaults are there by husband or wife, where the woman is not felled by the actual fist, though she staggers and sinks under blows quite as cruel and effectual? Where, with old wounds yet unhealed, which he strives to hide under a smiling face from the world, she has to bear up and be stricken down and to rise to her feet again.
Under fresh daily strokes of torture, where the husband, fond and faithful, has to suffer slights, coldness, insults, desertion, his children sneered away from their love for him, his friends driven from his door by jealousy. His happiness strangled, his whole life embittered, poisoned, destroyed. If you were acquainted with the history of every family in your street, don't you know that in two or three of the houses there such tragedies have been playing? Is not the young mistress of number twenty already pining at her husband's desertion? The kind master of number thirty? Whacking his fevered brains and toiling through sleepless nights to pay for the jewels on his wife's neck, and the carriage out of which he ogles Lothario in the park.
The fate under which man or woman falls, blow of brutal tyranny, heartless desertion, weight of domestic care too heavy to bear, are not blows such as these constantly striking people down. In this long parenthesis, we are wandering ever so far away from Monsieur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry, and from the vivacious Florex statement regarding his kinsman, that that woman will kill him. There is this, at least if you said, that if the Duc d'Ivry did die, he was a very old gentleman, and had been a great vivere for at least three score years of his life. As Prince de Montcouture, in his father's time before the Revolution, during the emigration, even after the Restoration, Monsieur Le Duc had vécu with an extraordinary vitality.
He had gone through good and bad fortune, extreme poverty, display and splendor, affairs of love, affairs of honor, and of one disease or another, a man must die at the end. After the Baden business, and he had dragged off his wife to Champagne, the Duke became greatly broken. He brought his little daughter to a convent at Paris, putting the child under the special guardianship of Madame de Florac, with whom, and with whose family, in these latter days, the old chief of the house effected a complete reconciliation. The Duke was now forever coming to Madame de Florac. He poured all his wrongs and griefs into her ear with gallulous senile eagerness. "'That little duchess is a monster, a femme du jeune, Sue,' the Viscount used to say.
"'The poor old Duke, he cry. Ma parole d'harnais. He cry, and I cry, too, when he comes to recount to my poor mother, whose sainted heart is the isle of all griefs, a real hôtel d'heures,' My word the most sacred, with beds for all the afflicted with sweet words, like sisters of charity, to minister to them. I cry, mon bon pendennis, where this Villard tells his stories about his wife and tears his white hairs to the feet of my mother. When the little Antoinette was separated by her father from her mother, The Duchess d'Evry, it might have been expected that that poetess would have dashed off for a few more cri de l'homme, shrieking according to her want, and bearing and beating that shriveled maternal bosom of hers, from which her child had just been torn.
The child skipped and laughed to go away to the convent. It was only when she left Madame de Florac that she used to cry. And when urged by that good lady to exhibit a little decorous sentiment in writing to her, Mama, Antoinette would ask, in an artless way, pourquoi? Mama used never to speak to me, except sometimes before the world, before ladies. That understands itself. When her gentlemen came, she put me to the door. Then she gave me tapas. Oh oui, she gave me tapas. I cry no more. She has so much made to cry, Monsieur le Duc, that it is quite enough of one in a family. Madame the Duchess D'Evry did not weep, even in print, for the loss of her pretty little Antoinette. Besides, she was engaged at that time by other sentimental occupations.
A young grazier of their neighboring town, of an aspiring mind and remarkable poetic talents, engrossed the duchess' platonic affections at this juncture. When he had sold his beast at market, he would ride over and read Rousseau and Schiller with Madame la Duchesse, who formed him. His pretty young wife was rendered miserable by all these readings, but what could the poor little ignorant countrywoman know of Platonism? Far, there is more than one woman we see in society, smiling about from house to house, pleasant and sentimental, and for most is supern enough. But I fancy a fish's tail is flapping under her fine flounces, and a fork to fin, At the end of it, finer flounces, finer bonnets, more lovely wreaths, more beautiful lace, smarter carriages, bigger white bows, larger footmen, were not seen during all the season of eighteen blank.
Then appeared round about St. George's, Hanover Square, in the beautiful month of June, succeeding that September, when so many of our friends the Newcombs were assembled at Baden. Those flaunting carriages, powdered and favored footmen, were in attendance upon members of the Newcomb family and their connections, who were celebrating what is called a marriage in high life in the temple within. Shall we set down a catalogue of the dukes, marquises, earls who were present, cousins of the lovely bride? Are they not already in the Morning Herald and Court Journal, as well as the Newcomb Sentinel and Independent, and the Dorking Intelligence and Chanticleer Weekly Gazette? There they are, all printed at full length, sure enough.
The name of the bride, Lady Clara Poulain, the lovely and accomplished daughter of the Earl and Duchess of Dorking. Other beautiful bridesmaids, the ladies Henrietta, Belinda, Adelaide Poulain, Miss Newcomb, Miss Alice Newcomb, Miss Maud Newcomb, Miss Anna Maria Hobson Newcomb, and all the other persons engaged in the ceremony. It was performed by the Right Honorable Viscount Gallen-Glass, Bishop of Ballyshannon. Brother-in-law to the bride, assisted by the Honorable and Reverend Hercules O'Grady, his Lordship's chaplain, and the Reverend John Balders, Rector of St. Mary's Newcomb. Then follow the names of all the nobility who were present, and of the noble and distinguished personages who signed the book.
Then comes an account of the principal dresses, chef d'oeuvre of Madame Crinoline. Of the bride's coronal of brilliance supplied by Mrs. Moore and Stortemer. Of the veil of priceless chantilly lace, the gift to the Dowager Countess of Kew. Then there is a description of the wedding breakfast at the house of the bride's noble parents, and of the cake, decorated by Mrs. Gunter, with the most delicious taste and the sweetest hymenial allusions. No mention was made by the fashionable chronicler of a slight disturbance which occurred at St. George's, and which was indeed out of the province of such a genteel purveyor of news. Before the marriage service began, a woman of vulgar appearance and disorderly aspect, accompanied by two scared children, who took no part in the disorder occasioned by their mother's proceeding, Except by their tears and outcries to augment the disquiet.
Made her appearance in one of the pews of the church. Was noted there by persons in the vestry. Was requested to retire by a beetle. And was finally induced to quit the sacred precincts of the building by the very strongest persuasion of a couple of policemen. X and Y laughed at one another, and nodded their heads knowingly, as the poor wretch with her whimpering boys was led away. They understood very well who the personage was, who had come to disturb the matrimonial ceremony. It did not commence until Mrs. De Lacy, as this lady chose to be called, had quitted this temple of Hymen. She slunk through the throng of emblazoned carriages, and the press of footmen arrayed as splendidly as Solomon in his glory.
John jeered at Thomas. William turned his powdered head and signaled James, who answered with a corresponding grin, as the woman with sobs and wild imprecations and frantic appeals made her way through the splendid crowd, escorted by her aides to camp in blue. I dare say her little history was discussed at many a dinner table that day, in the basement story of several fashionable houses. I know that at clubs in St. James's, the facetious little anecdote was narrated. A young fellow came to Bay's after the marriage breakfast, and mentioned the circumstance with funny comments, although the Morning Post, in describing this affair in high life, Naturally omitted all mention of such low people as Mrs.
DeLacy and her children. Those people who knew the noble families whose unions had been celebrated by such a profusion of grandees, fine equipages and footmen, brass bands, brilliant toilettes, and wedding favors, asked how it was that Lord Q did not assist at Barnes-Newcomb's marriage. Other persons in society inquired waggishly why Jack Belsize was not present to give Lady Clara away. As for Jack Belsize, his clubs had not been ornamented by his presence for a year past. It was said he had broken the bank at Hamburg last autumn, had been heard of during the winter at Milan, Venice, and Vienna, and when, a few months after the marriage of Barnes Newcomb and Lady Clara, Jack's elder brother died, and he himself became the next in succession to the title and estates of Highgate.
Many folks said it was a pity little Barney's marriage had taken place so soon. Lord Q was not present, because Q was still abroad. He had had a gambling duel with a Frenchman, and a narrow squeak for his life. He had turned Roman Catholic, some men said. Others vowed that he had joined the Methodist persuasion. At all events, Q had given up his wild courses, broken with the turf, and sold his stud off. He was delicate yet, and his mother was taking care of him, between whom and the old dowager of Q, who had made up Barney's marriage. As everybody knew, there was no love lost. Then who was the Prince de Montcouture? who, with his princess, figured at this noble marriage. There was a moncontour, the Duke d'Evry's son, but he died at Paris before the Revolution of Thirty.
One or two of the Ulsters at Bayses. Major Pendennis, General Tuffo, old Cackleby, the old fogies in a word, remembered the Duke of Ivry when he was here during the emigration. And when he was called Prince de Moncouture, the title of the eldest son of the family, Ivory was dead, having buried his son before him, and having left only a daughter by that young woman whom he married, and who led him such a life. Who was this present Moncouture? He was a gentleman to whom the reader has already been presented. Though when we lately saw him at Baden, he did not enjoy so magnificent a title. Early in the year of Barnes and Newcomb's marriage, there came to England and to our modest apartment in the temple a gentleman bringing a letter of recommendation from our dear young Clive, who said that the bearer, the Vicanto Florac, was a great friend of his and of the colonel's, who had known his family from boyhood.
A friend of our Clive and our Colonel was sure of a welcome in Lamb Court. We gave him the hand of hospitality, the best cigar in the box, the easy-chair with only one broken leg, the dinner in Chambers and at the club, the banquet at Greenwich, where, Malfoy, the little white buds, elicited his profound satisfaction. In a word, did our best to honor that bill which our young Clive had drawn upon us. We considered the young one in the light of a nephew of our own, who took a pride in him, and were fond of him, and, as for the Colonel, did we not love and honor him? Would we not do our utmost in behalf of any stranger who came recommended to us by Thomas Newcomb's good word? So Fleurac was straightaway admitted to our companionship.
We showed him the town, and some of the modest pleasures thereof. We introduced him to the haunt, and astonished him by the company which he met there. Between Brent's deserter and Mark Wilder's Gary Owen, Fleurac sang, To the delight of Tom Sargent, who, though he only partially comprehended the words of the song, pronounced the singer to be a rare gentleman, full of most excellent differences, we took our floor out to the Derby. We presented him in Fitzroy Square, whither we still occasionally went, for Clive's and our dear Colonel's sake. The Viscount pronounced himself strongly in favor of the Blanche Miss Little Rosie Mackenzie, of whom we have lost sight for some few chapters. Mrs. Mackey considered my faith to be a woman superb.
He used to kiss the tips of his own fingers, in token of his admiration for the lovely widow. He pronounced her again more pretty than her daughter, and paid her a thousand compliments, which he received with exceeding good humor. It the Viscount gave us, to understand presently, that Rosie and her mother were both in love with him, but that, for all the world, he would not meddle with the happiness of his dear little Clive. Nothing unfavorable to the character of Constance of the before-mentioned ladies must be inferred from Monsieur de Florac's speech, his firm conviction being that no woman could pass many hours in his society without danger to her subsequent peace of mind. For some little time, we had no reason to suspect that our French friend was not particularly well furnished with the current coin of the realm.
Without making any show of wealth, he would, at first, cheerfully engage in our little parties. His lodgings in the neighborhood of Leicester Square, though dingy, were such as many noble foreign exiles have inhabited. It was not until he refused to join some pleasure trip, which we of Lamp Court proposed, honestly confessing his poverty, that we were made aware of the Viscount's little temporary calamity. And, as we became more intimate with him, he acquainted us with great openness with the history of all his fortunes. He described energetically that splendid run of luck which had set in at Baden with Clive's loan. His winnings, at that fortunate period, had carried him through the winter with considerable brilliancy.
But Bouillette and Mademoiselle Attala, other varieties, Un agressor, mon cher, who devours thirty of our young men every year in her cavern in the rue de Brida, had declared against him, and the poor Vicon's pockets were almost empty when he came to London. He was amiably communicative regarding himself, and told us his virtues and his faults. If indeed a passion for play and for women could be considered as false in a gay young fellow of two or three and forty, with a little engaging frankness, he would weep in describing his angel mother. He would fly off again into tirades respecting the wickedness, the wit, the extravagance, the charms of the young lady of the varieties. He would then, in conversation, introduce us to Madame de Florac.
Ney, Hig, of Montcheter. His prattle was incessant, and to my friend Mr. Warrington, especially, he was an object of endless delight in amusement and wonder. He would roll and smoke countless paper cigars, talking unrestrainedly when we were not busy, silent when we were engaged. He would only rarely partake of our meals. And altogether refused all offers of pecuniary aid. He disappeared at dinner-time into the mysterious purlieus of Leicester Square, and dark ordinaires only frequented by Frenchmen. As we walked with him in the Regent Street Precincts, he would exchange marks of recognition with many dusky personages, smoking bravos, and whiskered refugees of his nation. That gentleman, he would say, who has done me the honor to salute me, is a coiffure of the most celebrated.
He forms the Delices of a table d'hote. Bonjour, mon cher, monsieur. We are friends, though not of the same opinion. Monsieur is a Republican of the most distinguished, conspirator of profession, and at this time engaged in constructing an infernal machine to the address of his majesty, Louis-Philippe, King of the French, who is my friend with the scarlet beard and the white palette. My good Warrington, you do not move in the world. You make yourself a hermit, my dear. No, monsieur, monsieur's secretary to Mademoiselle Caracaline, the lovely writer at the Circus of Astley. I shall be charmed to introduce you to this amiable society some day at our table d'hote. Warrington vowed that the company of Florek's friends would be infinitely more amusing than the noblest society ever chronicled in the morning post.
But we were neither sufficiently familiar with the French language to make conversation in that tongue as pleasant to us as talking in our own, And so were content with Fleurac's description of his compatriots, which the Viscount delivered in that charming French-English of which he was a master. However threadbare in his garments, poor in purse, and eccentric in morals our friend was, his manners were always perfectly gentleman-like, and he draped himself in his poverty with the grace of a Spanish grandee. It must be confessed that the Grandy loved the estaminette, where he could play billiards with the first corner, that he had a passion for the gambling house, that he was a loose and disorderly nobleman.
But, in whatever company he found himself, a certain kindness, simplicity, and politeness distinguished him always. He bowed to the damsel who sold him a penny cigar, as graciously as to a duchess. He crushed Timonant's impertinence of familiarity, as haughtily as his noble ancestors ever did at the Louvre, at Marley, or Versailles. He declined to au tempore, to his landlady's request to pay his rent. But he refused with the dignity which struck the woman with awe. And King Alfred Over the celebrated muffin, on which Gandish and other painters have exercised their genius, could not have looked more noble than Fleurach in a robe de chambre. Once gorgeous, but shady now, as became its owner's clouded fortunes, toasting his bit of bacon at his lodgings, when the fare even of his table-dote had grown too dear for him.
As we know from Gandish's work, the better times were in store for the wandering monarch, and that the officers came, acquainting him that his people demanded his presence a grand cri, when, of course, King Alfred laid down the toast and resumed the scepter. So in the case of Lorach, two humble gentlemen, inhabitants of Lamb Court, and members of the upper temple, Had the good luck to be the heralds, as it were, nay, indeed the occasion, of the rising fortunes of the Prince de Montcouture. Florac had informed us of the death of his cousin, the Duke d'Evry, by whose demise the Viscount's father, the old Count de Florac, became the representative of the House of Ivry. and possessor, through his relative's bequest, of an old chateau still more gloomy and spacious than the Count's own house in the Fulberg-Saint-Germain, a chateau of which the woods, domains, and appurtenances have been lopped off by the Revolution.
Monsieur Lecomte, Florex says, has not wished to change his name at his age. He has shrugged his old shoulder and said it was not the trouble to make to engrave a new card, and for me, the philosophical Viscount added, of what good shall be a title of Prince in the position where I find myself? It is wonderful for us who inhabit a country where rank is worshipped with so admirable a reverence to think that there are many gentlemen in France who actually have authentic titles and do not choose to bear them. Mr. George Warrington was hugely amused with this notion of Florex ranks and dignities. The idea of the prince purchasing penny cigars, of the prince mildly expostulating with his landlady regarding the rent, of his punting for half-crowns in a neighborhood hall in Eyre Street, whither the poor gentleman desperately ran when he had money in his pocket, tickled George's sense of humor.
It was Warrington who gravely saluted the Viscount, and compared him to King Alfred. On that afternoon, we happened to call upon him and found him engaged in cooking his modest dinner. We were bent upon an excursion to Greenwich, and on having our friend's company on that voyage, and we induced the Viscount to forgo his bacon and be our guest for once. George Warrington chose to indulge in a great deal of ironical pleasantry in the course of the afternoon's excursion. As we went down the river, he pointed out to Florak the very window in the tower when the captive Duke of Orleans used to sit when he was an inhabitant of that fortress. At Greenwich, which palace, Florak informed us, was built by Queen Elizabeth, George showed the very spot where Raleigh laid his cloak down to enable Her Majesty to step over a puddle.
In a word, He mystified Monsieur de Florac. Such was Mr. Warrington's reprehensible spirit. It happened that Mr. Barnes Newcomb came to dine at Greenwich on the same day when our little party took place. He had come down to meet Rooster and one or two other noble friends whose names he took care to give us, cursing them at the same time by having thrown him over. Having missed his own company, Mr. Barnes condescended to join ours, Warrington gravely thanking him for the great honor which he conferred upon us by volunteering to take a place at our table. Barnes drank freely and was good enough to resume his acquaintance with Monsieur de Florac, whom he perfectly well recollected at Baden, but had thought proper to forget on the one or two occasions when they had met in public since the Vicon's arrival in this country.
There are few men who can drop and resume an acquaintance with such admirable self-possession as Barnes Newcomb, when, over our dessert, by which time all tongues were unloosed and each man talked gaily. George Warrington feelingly thanked Barnes in a little mock speech for his great kindness in noticing us, presenting him, at the same time to Florack, as the ornament of the city. The greatest banker of his age, the beloved kinsman of their friend Clive, who was always writing about him. Barnes said, with one of his accustomed curses, he did not know whether Mr. Warrington was chaffing him or not, and indeed could never make him out. Warrington replied that he never could make himself out, and if ever Mr.
Barnes could, George would thank him for information on that subject.
Like most Frenchmen, very sober in his potations, left us for a while over hours, which were conducted after the more liberal English manner, and retired to smoke his cigar on the terrace. Barnes then freely uttered his sentiments regarding him, which were not more favorable than those which the young gentleman generally emitted, respecting gentlemen whose backs were turned. He had known a little of Florak the year before at Baden. He had been mixed up with Q in that confounded row in which Q was hit. He was an adventurer, a pauper, a blackleg, a regular Greek. He had heard Florak was of old family. That was true. But what of that? He was only one of those deed French counts. Everybody was a count in France, confound him.
The claret was beastly. Not fit for a gentleman to drink. He swigged off a great bumper as he was making the remark. For Barnes Newcomb abuses the men and things which he uses, and perhaps is better served than more grateful persons. Count, cries Warrington. What do you mean by talking about beggarly counts? Fleurik's family is one of the noblest and most ancient in Europe. It is more ancient than your illustrious friend, the barber surgeon. It was illustrious before the house, aye, or the pagoda of Kew was in existence. And he went on to describe how Fleurik, by the demise of his kinsmen, was now actually Prince de Montcontour, though he did not choose to assume that title. Very likely, the noble Gascon drink, in which George had been indulging, imparted a certain warmth and eloquence to his description of Lorick's good qualities, high birth, and considerable patrimony.
Barnes looked quite amazed and scared at these announcements, then laughed and declared once more that Warrington was chaffing him. As sure as the Black Prince was Lord of Aquitaine, as sure as the English were masters of Bordeaux, And why do we ever lose the country, cries George, filling himself a bumper. Every word I have said about Florac is true. And Florac coming in at this juncture, having just finished his cigar, George turned round and made him a fine speech in the French language, in which he lauded his constancy and good humor under evil fortune. Paid him two or three more cordial compliments, and finished by drinking another great bumper to his good health. Floric took a little wine, replied, with effusion, to the toast which is excellent his noble friend had just carried.
We wrapped our glasses at the end of the speech. The landlord himself seemed deeply touched by it, as he stood by with a fresh bottle. It is good wine. It is honest wine. It is capital wine," says George.
What business have you, you little beggar, to abuse it? My ancestor drank the wine and wore the model round his leg, long before Newcomb ever showed his pale face in Lombard Street. George Warrington never bragged about his pedigree, except under certain influences. I am inclined to think that on this occasion he really did find the claret very good. You don't mean to say, says Barnes, addressing Florak in French, on which he piqued himself, que vous avez un tel mangé votre nom, et que vous ne le laissez pas. Florak shrugged his shoulders. He at first did not understand that familiar figure of English speech, or what was meant by having a handle to your name. Mon contour cannot dine better than Florak, he said.
Florac has two louis in his pocket, and Moncontour exactly forty shillings. Florac's proprietor will ask Moncontour tomorrow for five weeks' rent, and ask for Florac's friends, my dear, they will burst out laughing to Moncontour's nose. How droll you English are," this acute French observer afterwards said, laughing and recalling the incident. Did you not see how that little Barnes, as soon as he knew my title of Prince, changed his manner and became all respect towards me? This, indeed, Monsieur de Florex's two friends remarked with no little amusement. Barnes began quite well to remember their pleasant days at Baden, and talked of their acquaintance there. Barnes offered the Prince the vacant seat in his Brogham, and was ready to set him down anywhere that he wished in town.
"'Bah,' says Florek, "'we came by the steamer, "'and I prefer the penny boat.' But the hospitable Barnes, nevertheless, "'called upon Florek the next day. "'And now, having partially explained "'how the Prince de Montcontour "'was present at Mr. Barnes Newcomb's wedding, "'let us show how it was "'that Barnes' first cousin, "'the Earl of Kew, "'did not attend that ceremony.'" End. of chapter 36.
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37 37 - Chapter 37: Return to Lord Kew 21:52
We do not propose to describe at length or with precision the circumstances of the duel which ended so unfortunately for young Lord Q. The meeting was inevitable, after the public acts and insults of the morning. The maddened Frenchman went to it convinced that his antagonist had willfully outraged him, eager to show his bravery upon the body of an Englishman. and as proud as if he had been going into actual war. That commandment, the sixth in our Decalogue, which forbids the doing of murder, and the injunction which directly follows on the same table. The children of the family have been repealed by a very great number of Frenchmen for many years past, and to take the neighbor's wife and his life subsequently has not been an uncommon practice.
Castellones had no idea but that he was going to the field of honor, stood with an undaunted scowl before his enemy's pistol. and discharged his own, and brought down his opponent with a grim satisfaction, and a comfortable conviction afterwards that he had acted en gallant homme. It was well for this, Malor, that he fell at the very first shot, my dear," the exemplary young Frenchman remarked. A second might have been yet more fatal to him. Ordinarily, I am sure of my coup. And you conceive that in an affair so grave, it was absolutely necessary that one or other should remain on the ground. Nay, should Monsieur de Q recover from his wound, it was Monsieur de Castelloni's intention to propose a second encounter between himself and that nobleman.
It had been Lord Q's determination never to fire upon his opponent. A confession which he made not to his second, poor, scared Lord Rooster, who bore the young Earl to kill, but to some of his nearest relatives, who happened fortunately to be not far from him when he received his wound, and came with all the eagerness of love to watch by his bedside. We have said, That Lord Q's mother, Lady Wallum, and her second son were staying at Hamburg when the Earl's disaster occurred. They had proposed to come to Baden to see Q's new bride and to welcome her, but the presence of her mother-in-law deterred Lady Wallum, who gave up her heart's wish in bitterness of spirit. Knowing very well that a meeting between the old Countess and herself could only produce the wrath, pain, and humiliation which their coming together always occasioned.
It was Lord Q who bad rooster sent for his mother, and not for Lady Q. And as soon as she received those sad tidings, you may be sure the poor lady hastened to the bed where her wounded boy lay. The fever had declared itself, and the young man had been delirious more than once. His worn face lighted up with joy when he saw his mother. He put his little feverish hand out of the bed to her. "'I knew you would come, dear,' he said, "'and you know I never would have fired upon the poor Frenchman.'" The fond mother allowed no sign of terror or grief to appear upon her face, so as to disturb her firstborn and darling. But no doubt she prayed by his side as such loving hearts know how to pray, for the forgiveness of his trespass, who had forgiven those who sinned against him.
I knew I should be hit, George, said Q, to his brother, when they were alone. I always expected some such end as this. My life has been very wild and reckless, and you, George, have always been faithful to our mother. You will make a better Lord Q than I have been, George. God bless you. George flung himself down with sobs by his brother's bedside and swore Frank had always been the best fellow, the best brother, the kindest heart, the warmest friend in the world. Love, prayer, repentance thus met over the young man's bed. Anxious and humble hearts, his own the least anxious and the most humble, awaited the dread award of life or death, and the world and its ambition and vanities were shut out from the darkened chamber where the awful issue was being tried.
Our history has had little to do with characters resembling this lady. It is of the world and things pertaining to it, things beyond it, As the writer imagines, scarcely belonged to the novelist province. Who is he that he should assume the Divine's office, or turn his desk into a preacher's pulpit? In that career of pleasure, of idleness, of crime we might call it, but that the chronicler of worldly matters had best be chari of applying hard names to acts which young men are doing in the world every day. The gentle widowed lady, mother of Lord Q., could but keep aloof, deploring the course upon which her dear, young prodigal had entered, and praying with that saintly love those pure supplications, with which good mothers followed their children, for her boy's repentance and return.
Very likely her mind was narrow. Very likely, The precautions which he had used in the lad's early days, the tutors and directors she had set about him, the religious studies and practices to which she would have subjected him, had served only to vex and weary the young pupil, and to drive his high spirit into revolt. It is hard to convince a woman perfectly pure in her life and intentions, ready to die if need were for her own faith. Having absolute confidence in the instruction of her teachers, that she and they, with all their sermons, may be doing harm. When the young catechist yawns over her reverence's discourse, who knows, but it is the doctor's vanity which is enraged, and not heaven which is offended.
It may have been, in the differences which took place between her son and her, the good lady Wollum never could comprehend the lad's side of the argument, or how his Protestantism against her doctrines should exhibit itself on the turf, the gaming table. Or the stage of the opera house. And thus, but for the misfortune under which poor Q now lay bleeding, these two loving hearts might have remained through life asunder. But by the boy's bedside, in the paroxysms of his fever, in the wild talk of his delirium, in the sweet patience and kindness with which he received his dear nurse's attentions, The gratefulness with which he thanked the servants who waited on him. The fortitude with which he suffered the surgeon's dealings with his wounds.
The widowed woman have an opportunity to admire with an exquisite thankfulness the generous goodness of her son. And in those hours, those sacred hours passed in her own chamber, of prayers, fears, hopes, Recollections and passionate maternal love, wrestling with fate for her darling's life. No doubt, the humbled creature came to acknowledge that her own course regarding him had been wrong, and, even more for herself than for him, implored forgiveness. For some time, George Barnes had to send but doubtful and melancholy bulletins to Lady Q and the Newcomb family at Bodden. Who were all greatly moved and affected by the accident, which had befallen poor Q. Lady Q broke out in wrath and indignation.
We may be sure the Duchess Devery offered to condole with her upon Q's mishap the day after the news arrived at Baden, and indeed came to visit her. The old lady had just received other disquieting intelligence. She was just going out, but she bade her servant to inform the Duchess that she was never more at home to the Duchess Devery. The message was not delivered properly, or the person for whom it was intended did not choose to understand it. But presently, as the Countess was hobbling across the walk on her way to her daughter's residence, she met the Duchess Devery. We saluted her with a demure curtsy and a commonplace expression of condolence. The Queen of Scots was surrounded by the chief part of her court, saving, of course, Messieurs, Castelloni's, and Punter absent on service.
We were speaking of this deplorable affair," said Madame D'Evry, which indeed was the truth, although she said it. How we pity you, Madame. Blackball and Loder, Kruekakasse and Schlagenbad assumed sympathetic countenances. Trembling on her cane, the old countess glared out upon Madame D'Ivry. I pray you, Madame, she said in French, never again to address me the word. If I had, like you, assassins in my pay, I would have you killed. Do you hear me? And she hobbled on her way. The household to which she was in terrible agitation. The kind lady Anne frightened beyond measure. Poor Ethel full of dread, and feeling guilty almost as if she had been the cause, as indeed she was the occasion of Q's misfortune, and the family had further cause of alarm from the shock which the news had given to Sir Brian.
It has been said that he had had illness of late. Which caused his friends much anxiety. He had passed two months at Aix-La Chapelle, his physicians dreading a paralytic attack, and Madame D'Evry's party still sauntering on the walk, the men smoking their cigars, the women breathing their scandal. Now beheld Dr. Fink issuing from Lady Anne's apartments, and wearing such a face of anxiety that the Duchess asked with some emotion. Had there been a fresh bulletin from Kell? No, there had been no fresh bulletin from Kell, but two hours since Sir Brian Newcomb had had a paralytic seizure. Is he very bad? No, said Dr. Fink, he is not very bad. How inconsolable Mr. Barnes will be, said the Duchess, shrugging her haggard shoulders.
Whereas the fact that Mr. Barnes retained perfect presence of mind under both of the misfortunes which had befallen his family. Two days afterwards, the Duchess's husband arrived himself, when, we may presume, that exemplary woman was too much engaged with her own affairs to be able to be interested about the doings of other people. With the Duke's arrival, the court of Mary, Queen of Scots, was broken up. Her Majesty was conducted to Loch Levin, where her tyrant soon dismissed her very last lady-in-waiting, the confidential Irish secretary, whose performance had produced such fine effect amongst the Newcombs. Had poor Sir Brian Newcomb's seizure occurred at an earlier period of the autumn, his illness, no doubt, would have kept him for some months confined at Baden.
But as he was pretty nearly the last of Dr. Van Fink's bath patients, and that eminent physician longed to be off to the residence, he was pronounced in a fit condition for easy traveling in rather a brief period after his attack, and it was determined to transport him to Mannheim, and thence by water, to London and Newcomb. During all this period of their father's misfortune, no sister of charity could have been more tender, active, cheerful, and watchful than Miss Ethel. She had to wear a kind face, and exhibit no anxiety when occasionally the feeble invalid made inquiries regarding Borku at Baden, to catch the phrases as they came from him, to acquiesce, or not to deny, when Sir Brian talked of the marriages, Both marriages, taking place at Christmas.
Sir Brian was especially eager for his daughters, and repeatedly, with his broken words and smiles and caresses, which were now quite senile, declared that his Ethel would make the prettiest countess in England. There came a letter or two from Clive, no doubt, to the young nurse in her sick room. Manly and generous, full of tenderness and affection, as those letters surely were, they could give but little pleasure to the young lady, indeed, only add to her doubts and pain. She had told none of her friends as yet of those last words of Q's, which she interpreted as a farewell on the young nobleman's part. Had she told them, they would likely not have understood Q's meaning as she did. And persisted in thinking that the two were reconciled.
At any rate, whilst he and her father were still lying stricken by the blows which had prostrated them both, all questions of love and marriage had been put aside. Did she love him? She felt such a kind pity for his misfortune, such an admiration for his generous gallantry, such a remorse for her own wayward conduct and cruel behavior towards this most Honest and kindly and affectionate gentleman, that the sum of regard which he could bestow upon him might surely be said to amount to love. For such a union as that, contemplated between them, perhaps for any marriage, no greater degree of attachment was necessary as the common cement. Warm friendship, and thorough esteem and confidence, I do not say that our young lady calculated in this matter-of-fact way.
Our safe properties invested in the prudent marriage stock, multiplying and bearing an increasing value with every year. Many a young couple of Spentherops get through their capital of passion in the first twelve months and have no love left for the daily demands of afterlife. Oh me, for the day when the bank account is closed and the cupboard is empty and the firm of Damon and Phyllis insolvent. Miss Newcomb, we say, without doubt, did not make her calculations in this debtor and creditor fashion. It was only the gentlemen of that family who went to Lombard Street. But suppose she thought that regard and esteem and affection being sufficient, she could joyfully, and with almost all her heart, bring such a portion to Lord Q, that her harshness towards him, as contrasted with his own generosity, and above all with his present pain, infinitely touched her.
And suppose she fancied that there was another person in the world to whom, did fate's permit, she could offer not esteem, affection, pity only, but something ten thousand times more precious. We are not in the young lady's secrets, but if she has some as she sits by her father's chair in bed, who day and night will have no other attendant. And as she busies herself to interpret his wants, silently moves on his errands, administers his potions, and watches his sleep, thinks of Clive absent and unhappy, of Q wounded and in danger, she must have subject enough of thought and pain. Little wonder that her cheeks are pale and her eyes look red. She has her cares to endure now in the world, and her burden to bear in it.
And somehow she feels she is alone since that day when poor Clive's carriage drove away. In a mood of more than ordinary depression and weakness, Lady Q must have found her granddaughter upon one of the few occasions after the double mishap when Ethel and her elder were together. Sir Brian's illness, as it may be imagined, affected a lady very slightly. who was of an age where these calamities occasioned with small disquiet, and who, having survived her own father, her husband, her son, and witnessed their lordship's respective demises with perfect composure, could not reasonably be called upon to feel any particular dismay at the probable departure from this life of a Lombard street banker, who happened to be her daughter's husband.
In fact, not Barnes Newcomb himself could await that event more philosophically. So, finding Ethel in this melancholy mood, Lady Q thought a drive in the fresh air would be of service to her, and Sir Brian, happening to be asleep, carried the young girl away in her barouche. They talked about Lord Q, of whom the accounts were encouraging. And who was mending in spite of his silly mother and her medicines. And as soon as he is able to move, we must go and fetch him, my dear," Lady Q graciously said, before that foolish woman has made a Methodist of him. He is always led by the woman who is nearest him, and I know one who will make of him just the best little husband in England. Before they had come to this delicate point, the lady and her grandchild had talked Q's character over, the girl, you may be sure, having spoken feelingly and eloquently about his kindness and courage and many admirable qualities.
She kindled when she heard the report of his behavior at the commencement of the fracas with Monsieur de Castelloni's. It was great forbearance and good nature, and its resolution and magnanimity when the moment of collision came. But when Lady Q arrived at that period of her discourse, in which she stated that Q would make the best little husband in England, poor Ethel's eyes filled with tears. We must remember that her high spirit was worn down by watching in much varied anxiety. And then she confessed that there had been no reconciliation. As all the family fancied between Frank and herself. On the contrary, a parting which she understood to be final, and she owned that her conduct towards her cousin had been most captious and cruel, and that she could not expect they should ever again come together.
Lady Q, who hated sickbeds and surgeons except for herself, who hated her daughter-in-law above all, was greatly annoyed at the news which Ethel gave her, made light of, if, however, and was quite confident that a very few words from her would place matters on their old footing and determine the forthwith setting out for Kel. She would have carried Ethel with her, but that poor baronet, with cries and moans, insisted on retaining his nurse. and Ethel's grandmother was left to undertake this mission by herself, the girl remaining behind acquiescent, not unwilling, owning openly a great regard and esteem for Q, and the wrong which he had done him, feeling secretly a sentiment which she had best smother.
She had received a letter from that other person, and answered it with her mother's cognizance. But about this little affair neither Lady Anne nor her daughter happened to say a word to the manager of the whole family.
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38 38 - Chapter 38: In which Lady Kew leaves his Lordship quite convalescent 35:49
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 38, in which Lady Q leaves his lordship quite convalescent. Immediately after Lord Q's wound, and as it was necessary to apprise the Newcomb family of the accident which had occurred, the good-natured young Q had himself written a brief note to acquaint his relatives with his mishap, and had even taken the precaution to antedate a couple of billets to be dispatched on future days. Kindly forgeries, which told the Newcomb family and the Countess of Q that Lord Q was progressing very favorably, and that his hurt was trifling. The fever had set in, and the young patient was lying in great danger, as most of the laggards at Baden knew, when his friends there were set at ease by this fallacious bulletin.
On the third day after the accident, Lady Wallum arrived with her younger son to find Lord Q in the fever, which ensued after the wound. As the terrible anxiety during the illness had been Lady Wallum's, so was hers the delight of the recovery. The commander-in-chief of the family The old lady at Baden showed her sympathy by sending couriers and repeatedly issuing orders to have news of Q. Sickbeds scared her away invariably. When illness befell a member of her family, she hastily retreated from before the sufferer, showing her agitation of mind, however, by excessive ill-humor to all the others within her reach. A fortnight passed. A ball had been found and extracted. The fever was over. The wound was progressing favorably.
The patient advancing towards convalescence. And the mother, with her child once more under her wing, happier than she had been for seven years past, during which her young prodigal had been running the thoughtless career of which he himself was weary. And which had occasioned the fond lady such anguish. Those doubts, which perplex many a thinking man, and, when formed and uttered, give many a fond and faithful woman pain so exquisite, had most fortunately never crossed Q's mind. His early impressions were such as his mother had left them, and he came back to her. As she would have him, as a little child, owning his faults with a hearty, humble repentance, and with a thousand simple confessions, lamenting the errors of his past days.
We have seen him tired and ashamed of the pleasures which he was pursuing, of the companions who surrounded him, of the brawls and dissipations which amused him no more. In those hours of danger and doubt, when he had lain, with death perhaps before him, making up his account of the vain life which probably he would be called upon to surrender, no wonder this simple, kindly, modest, and courageous soul thought seriously of the past and of the future, and prayed and resolved, if a future were awarded to him, it should make amends for the days gone by. And surely, as the mother and son read together the beloved assurance of the divine forgiveness, of that joy which angels feel in heaven for a sinner repentant, we may fancy in the happy mother's breast a feeling somewhat akin to that angelic felicity, a gratitude and joy of all others the loftiest, the purest, the keenest.
Lady Walham might shrink with terror at the Frenchman's name, but her son could forgive him with all his heart, and kiss his mother's hand, and thank him as the best friend of his life.
During all the days of his illness, Hugh had never once mentioned Ethel's name. And once or twice as his recovery progressed, when, with doubt and tremor, his mother alluded to it, he turned from the subject as one that was disagreeable and painful. Had she thought seriously on certain things? Lady Wallum asked. Q thought not. But those who are bred up as you would have them, mother, are often none the better, the humble young fellow said. I believe she is a very good girl. She is very clever. She is exceedingly handsome. She is very good to her parents and her brothers and sisters. But he did not finish the sentence. Perhaps he thought, as he told Ethel afterwards, that she would have agreed with Lady Wallum even worse than with her imperious old grandmother.
Lady Wallum then fell to deplore Sir Brian's condition. Accounts of whose seizure, of course, had been dispatched to the Kell party, and to lament that a worldly man as he was should have such an affliction, so near the grave and so little prepared for it. Here, honest Q, however held out. Every man for himself, mother, says he. Sir Brian was bred up very strictly, perhaps too strictly as a young man. Don't you know that that good colonel, his elder brother, who seems to me about the most honest and good old gentleman I ever met in my life, was driven into rebellion in all sorts of wild courses by old Mrs. Newcomb's tyranny over him. As for Sir Brian, he goes to church every Sunday, has prayers in the family every day, I'm sure has led a hundred times better life than I have.
Poor old Sir Brian. I often have thought, mother, that though our side was wrong, you could not be altogether right, because I remember how my tutor and Mr. Bonner and Dr. Laud, when they used to come down to us at Q. Berry, used to make themselves so unhappy about other people. So the widow withdrew her unhappiness about Sir Brian. She was quite glad to hope for the best regarding that invalid. With some fears yet regarding her son, for many of the books with which the good lady traveled could not be got to interest him. At some he would laugh outright, with fear mixed with the maternal joy that he was returned to her. and had quitted his old ways, with keen feminine triumph, perhaps, that she had won him back, and happiness at his daily mending health.
All Lady Wallen's hours were passed in thankful and delighted occupation. George Barnes kept the Newcombs acquainted with the state of his brother's health. The skillful surgeon from Strasbourg reported daily better and better of him. and the little family were living in great peace and contentment, with one subject of dread, however, hanging over the mother of the two young men. The arrival of Lady Q, as she was foreboding, the fierce old mother-in-law who had worsted Lady Wollum in many a previous battle. It was what they called the summer of St. Martin, and the weather was luckily very fine. Q could presently be wheeled into the garden of the hotel. Whence he could see the broad, turbid current of the swollen Rhine.
The French bank fringed with alders, the vast yellow fields behind them, the great avenue of potlars stretching away to the Alsatian city, and its purple minster, yonder. Good Lady Wallum was for improving the Shining Hour by reading amusing extracts from her favorite volumes. Gentle anecdotes of Chinese and Hottentot converts, and incidents from missionary travel. George Barnes, a wily young diplomatist, insinuated Galignari, and hinted that Q might like a novel, and a profane work called Oliver Twist having appeared about this time, which George read out to his family with admirable emphasis. It is a fact that Lady Wallam became so interested in the parish boy's progress that she took his history into her bedroom, where it was discovered under Blatherwick's voice from Mesopotamia by her ladyship's maid, and that Q laughed so immensely at Mr.
Bumble, the beetle, as to endanger the reopening of his wound. While, one day, they were so harmlessly and pleasantly occupied A great whacking of whips, blowing of horns, and whirring of wheels was heard in the street without. The wheels stopped at their hotel gate. Lady Wallum started up, ran through the garden door, closing it behind her, and to find justly who had arrived. The landlord was bowing, the courier pushing about, waiters in attendance, one of them. Coming up to pale-face, Lady Wallum said, Her Excellency, the Frau Grafen van Kue, is even now absteething. Will you be good enough to walk into our salon, Lady Kue? said the daughter-in-law, stepping forward and opening the door of that apartment.
The Countess, leaning on her staff, entered that darkened chamber. She ran up towards an easy chair where she supposed Lord Q was. "'My dear Frank,' cries the old lady, "'my dear boy, what a pretty fright you have given us all. They don't keep you in this horrid, noisy room facing that.' "'Ho! What is this?' cries the Countess, closing her sentence abruptly. "'It is not Frank.' It is only a bolster, Lady Q, and I don't keep him in a noisy room towards the street," said Lady Wollum. Ho! How do you do? This is the way to him, I suppose. And she went to another door. It was a cupboard full of the relics of Frank's illness, from which Lady Wollum's mother-in-law shrunk back aghast. Were you pleased to see that I have a comfortable room, Maria, and one for my maid next me?
"'I will thank you to see yourself,' the Empress of Q said, pointing with her stick, before which many a time the younger lady had trembled. This time Lady Wallum only rang the bell. "'I don't speak German, and have never been on any floor of the house but this. Your servant had better see to your room, Lady Q. That next is mine, and I keep the door which you are trying locked on other side.'" "'And I suppose Frank is locked up there,' cried the old lady, "'with a basin of gruel and a book of Watt's hymns.' A servant entered at this moment, answering Lady Wollum's summons. "'Peacock, the Countess of Cues, says that she proposes to stay here this evening.' Pleased to ask the landlord to show her ladyship rooms, said Lady Wallum, and by this time she had thought of a reply to Lady Q's last kind speech.
If my son were locked up in my room, madam, his mother is surely the best nurse for him. Why did you not come to him three weeks sooner, when there was nobody with him? Lady Q said nothing. But glared and showed her teeth, those pearls set in gold. And my company may not amuse Lord Q. He-he, grinned the elder savagely. But at least it is better than some to which you introduced my son, continued Lady Q's daughter-in-law, gathering force and wrath as she spoke. Your ladyship may think lightly of me, but you can hardly think so ill of me as of the Duchess D'Evry. I should suppose to whom you sent my boy to form him, you said, about whom, when, I remonstrated, for though I live out of the world, I hear of it sometimes.
You were pleased to tell me that I was a prude and a fool. It is you, I thank, for separating my child from me. Yes, you, for so many years of my life, and for bringing me to him when he was bleeding and almost a corpse, but that God preserved him to the widow's prayers, and you, you were by and never came near him. I, I did not come to see you, or, or, for this kind of scene, Lady Wallum, muttered the other. Lady Q was accustomed to triumph by attacking in masses. Like Napoleon, those who faced her routed her. No, you did not come for me. I know very well," the daughter went on. You loved me no better than you loved your son, whose life, as long as you meddled with it, you made wretched. You came here for my boy.
Haven't you done him evil enough? And now God has mercifully preserved him. You want to lead him back again into ruin and crime. It shall not be so, wicked woman. Bad mother. Cruel, heartless parent. George! Here her younger son entered the room, and she ran towards him with fluttering robes and seized his hands. Here is your grandmother. Here is the Countess of Kew. Come from Baden at last. And she wants—she wants to take Frank from us, my dear, and to give him back to the— Frenchwoman again. No, no, oh my God, never, never, and she flung herself into George Barnes's arms, fainting with an hysteric burst of tears. You had best get a straight waistcoat for your mother, George Barnes, Lady Q said, scorn and hatred in her face.
If she had been Iago's daughter, with a strong likeness to her sire, Lorde Stane's sister could not have looked more diabolical. Have you had advice for her? As nursing poor Q turned her head. I came to see him. Why have I been left alone for half an hour with this madwoman? You ought not to trust her to give frank medicine. It is positively. Excuse me, said George with a bow. I don't think the complaint has, as yet, exhibited itself in my mother's branch of the family. She always hated me, thought George, but if she had, by chance, left me a legacy, there it goes. You would like, ma'am, to see the rooms upstairs? Here is the landlord to conduct your ladyship. Frank will be quite ready to receive you when you come down.
I am sure I need not beg of your kindness that nothing may be said to agitate him. It is barely three weeks since Monsieur de Castelloni's ball was extracted, and the doctors wish he should be kept as quiet as possible. Be sure that the landlord, the courier, and the persons engaged in showing the Countess of Q the apartments, above, spent an agreeable time with Her Excellency, the proud griffin, On cue, she must have had better luck in her encounter with these than in her previous passages with her grandson and his mother, for when she issued from her apartment in a new dress and fresh cap, Lady Q's face wore an expression of perfect serenity. Her attendant may have shook her fist behind her, and her man's eyes and face looked blitz and down-a-wetter.
But their mistress's features wore that pleased look which they assumed when she had been satisfactorily punishing somebody. Lord Q had by this time got back from the garden to his own room, where he awaited Grandmama. If the mother and her two sons had, in the interval of Lady Q's toilette, tried to resume the history of Bumble the Beetle, I fear they could not have found it very comical. Bless me, my dear child, how well you look. Many a girl would give the world to have such a complexion. There is nothing like a mother for a nurse. I know, Maria, you deserve to be the mother superior of a house of Sisters of Charity. You do. The landlord has given me a delightful apartment. Thank you. He is an extortionate wretch.
But I have no doubt I shall be very comfortable. The Doddsbury stopped here, I see by the Traveler's Book, quite right, instead of sleeping at that odious buggy Strasbourg. We have had a sad, sad time, my dears, at Baden. Between anxiety about poor Sir Brian and about you, you naughty boy, I'm sure I wonder how I have got through it all. Dr. Fink would not let me come away today. Would I would come. "'I am sure it was uncommonly kind, ma'am,' said poor Q, with a rueful face. "'That horrible woman against whom I always warned was you. But young men will not take the advice of old grandmammas. As gone away these ten days, Monsieur Le Duc fetched her, and if he locked her up at Montcontour and kept her on bread and water for the rest of her life, I am sure he would serve her right.' When a woman once forgets religious principles, Kew, she is sure to go wrong.
The conversation room was shut up. The Dorkings go on Tuesday. Clara is really dear little artless creature, one that you will like, Maria. And as for Ethel, I really think she is an angel. To see her nursing her poor father is the most beautiful sight. Night after night she has stayed up with him. "'I know where she would like to be, the dear child. And if Frank falls ill again, Maria, he won't need a mother or useless old grandmother to nurse him. I have got some pretty messages to deliver from her. But they are for your private ears, my lord. Not even mamma's and brother's may hear them.' "'Do not go, mother.' "'Pray stay, George,' cried the sick man. And again Lordstain's sister looked uncommonly like that, lamented Marquis.
My cousin is a noble young creature, he went on. She has admirable qualities, which I appreciate with all my heart. And her beauty, you know how I admire it. I have thought of her a great deal as I was lying on the bed yonder. The family look was not so visible in Lady Q's face. And, and, I wrote to her this very morning. She will have the letter by this time, probably. "'Been, Frank,' Lady Q smiled, in her supernatural way, almost as much as her portrait by Harlow, as you may see it at Q. Berry to this very day. She is represented seated before an easel, painting a miniature of her son, Lord Wallum." I wrote to her on the subject of the last conversation we had together, Frank resumed, in a rather timid voice, the day before my accident.
Perhaps she did not tell you, ma'am, of what passed between us. We had had a quarrel, one of many. Some cowardly hand, which we both of us can guess at, had written to her an account of my past life, and she showed me the letter. Then I told her that if she loved me, She never would have showed it to me without any other words of reproof. I bade her farewell. It was not much, the showing that letter, but it was enough. In twenty differences we have had together, she had been unjust and captious, cruel towards me, and too eager, as I thought, for other people's admiration. Had she loved me, it seemed to me Ethel would have shown less vanity and better temper. What was I to expect in life afterwards from a girl who before our marriage used me so?
Neither she nor I could be happy. She could be gentle enough and kind, and anxious to please any man whom she loves. God bless her. As for me, I suppose, I'm not worthy of so much talent and beauty, so we both understood that that was a friendly farewell. And as I have been lying on my bed yonder, Thinking, perhaps, I never might leave it, or if I did, that I should like to lead a different sort of life to that which ended in sending me there. My resolve of last month was only confirmed. God forbid that she and I should lead the lives of some folks we know, that Ethel should marry without love, perhaps to fall into it afterwards, and that I, after this awful warning I have had, Should be tempted to back into that dreary life I was leading.
It was wicked, ma'am. I knew it was. Many and many a day I used to say so to myself, and longed to get rid of it. I am a poor, weak devil, I know. I am only too easily led into temptation, and I should only make matters worse if I married a woman who cares for the world more than for me, and would not make me happy at home. Ethel care for the world, gasped out Lady Q. A most artless, simple, affectionate creature, my dear Frank. She—he interrupted her, as a blush came rushing over his pale face. Ah, said he, if I had been the painter, and young Clive had been Lord Q, which of us do you think she should have chosen? And she was right. He is a brave, handsome, honest young fellow, and is a thousand times cleverer and better than I am."
"'Not better, dear, thank God,' cried his mother, coming round to the other side of his sofa, and seizing her son's hand. "'No, I don't think he is better, Frank,' said the diplomatist, walking away to the window. And as for Grandmama at the end of this little speech and scene, her ladyship's likeness to her brother." The late, revered Lord Steyn was more frightful than ever. After a minute's pause, she rose up on her crooked stick and said, I really feel I am unworthy to keep company with so much exquisite virtue. It will be enhanced, my lord, by the thought of the pecuniary sacrifice which you are making, for I suppose you know that I have been hoarding, yes, and saving, and pinching. Denying myself the necessities of life in order that my grandson might one day have enough to support his rank.
Go and live and starve in your old dreary house, and marry a parson's daughter, and sing psalms with your precious mother. And I have no doubt you and she, she who has thwarted me all through my life, and whom I hated. Yes, I hated from the moment she took my son from me. And brought misery into my family. Will be all the happier when she thinks that she has made a poor, fond, lonely old woman more lonely and miserable. If you please, George Barnes, be good enough to tell my people that I shall go back to Baden. And waving her children away from her, the old woman tottered out of the room on her crutch. So the wicked fairy drove away disappointed in the chariot with the very dragons which had brought her away in the morning, and just had time to get their feed of black bread.
I wonder whether they were the horses Clive and J.J. and Jack Belsize had used when they passed on their road to Switzerland. Black hair sits behind all sorts of horses, and gives a trink-gelt to postilions all over the map. A thrill of triumph may be permitted to Lady Wallum after her victory over her mother-in-law. What Christian woman does not like to conquer another? And if that other were a mother-in-law, would the victory be less sweet? Husband and wives, both will be pleased that Lady Wallum has had the better of this bout. And you, young boys and virgins, when your turn comes to be married, you will understand the hidden meaning of this passage. George Barnes got Oliver Twist out and began to read therein.
Miss Nancy and Fanny again were summoned before this little company to frighten and delight them. I dare say even Fagin and Miss Nancy failed with the widow. So absorbed was she with the thoughts of the victory which she had just won. For the evening's service in which her sons rejoiced her fond heart by joining, She lighted on a psalm which was as a te deum after the battle, the Battle of Kel by Rhine, where Q's soul, as his mother thought, was the object of contention between the enemies. I have said this book is all about the world and a respectable family dwelling in it. It is not a sermon, except where it cannot help itself, and the speaker pursuing the destiny of his narrative Find such a homily before him.
O friend, in your life and mine, don't we light upon such sermons daily? Don't we see at home, as well as amongst our neighbors, that battle betwixt evil and good? Here on one side is self an ambition, an advancement, and right and love on the other. Which shall we let to triumph for ourselves? Which for our children? The young man was sitting, smoking the Vesper cigar. Frank would do it, and his mother actually lighted his cigar for him now, enjoining him straightway after to go to bed. Q. smoked and looked at a star, shining above in the heaven. Which is that star? he asked, and the accomplished young diplomatist answered it was Jupiter. What a lot of things you know, George, cries the senior, delighted.
You ought to have been the elder. You ought by Jupiter. But you have lost your chance this time. Yes, thank God, says George. And I am going to be all right, and to turn over a new leaf, old boy, and paste down the old ones, eh? I wrote to Martins this morning to have all my horses sold, and I'll never beg. So help me. So help me, Jupiter. I made a vow, a promise to myself, you see. that I wouldn't if I recovered, and I wrote to Cousin Ethel this morning, as I thought over the matter yonder. I felt quite certain I was right, and that we could never, never pull together. Now the countess is gone. I wonder whether I was right, to give up sixty thousand pounds and the prettiest girl in London. Shall I take the horses and go after her?
My mother's gone to bed. She won't know, asked George. "'Sixty thousand is a lot of money to lose.' Q laughed. "'If you were to go and tell our grandmother that I could not live the night through, and that you would be Lord Q in the morning, and your son, Viscount Waltham, I think the Countess would make up a match between you and the sixty thousand pounds, and the prettiest girl in England. She would, by Jupiter.' I intend only to swear by the heathen gods now, Georgie. No, I am not sorry, I wrote to Ethel. What a fine girl she is. I don't mean her beauty merely, but such a noble-bred one, and to think that there she is in the market to be knocked down to, I say, I was going to call that three-year-old Ethelinda.
We must christen her over again for tattersalls, Georgie. A knock is heard through an adjoining door, and a maternal voice cries, "'It is time to go to bed!' So the brothers part, and let us hope sleep soundly. The Countess of Kew, meanwhile, has returned to Baden, where, though it is midnight when she arrives, and the old lady has had two long bootless journeys, you will be grieved to hear that she does not sleep a single wink. In the morning, she hobbles over to the newcombe quarters, and Ethel comes down to her pale and calm. How is your father? He has had a good night. He is a little better, speaks more clearly, has a little more the use of his limbs. I wish I had had a good night, groans out the Countess.
I thought you were going to Lord Q at Kell, remarked her granddaughter. I did go. And returned with wretches who would not bring me more than five miles an hour. I dismissed that brutal grinning courier, and I have given warning to that fiend of a maid. And Frank is pretty well, Grandmama. Well, he looks as pink as a girl in her first season. I found him, and his brother George and their mama. I think Maria was hearing them, their catechism, cries the old lady. N and M together. Very pretty, says Ethel gravely. George has always been a good boy, and it's quite time for my Lord Q to begin. The elder lady looked at her descendant, but Miss Ethel's glance was impenetrable. I suppose you can fancy my idea why I came back, said Lady Q.
Because you quarreled with Lady Wallum, Grandmama. I think I have heard that there used to be differences between you. Miss Newcomb was armed for defense and attack. In which cases, we have said Lady Q, did not care to assault her. My grandson told me that he had written to you, the Countess said. Yes, and had you waited but half an hour yesterday, you might have spared me the humiliation of that journey. You! The humiliation! Ethel! Yes, me, Ethel flashed out. Do you suppose it is none to have me bandied about from bitter to bitter, and offered for sale to a gentleman who will not buy me? Why have you and all my family been so eager to get rid of me? Why should you suppose or desire that Lord Q should like me?
Hasn't he the opera, and such friends as Madame la Duchess d'Evry, to whom your ladyship introduced him in early life? He told me so. And she was good enough to inform me of the rest. What attractions have I in comparison with such women? And to this man from whom I imparted my good fortune, to this man who writes to remind me that we are separated, your ladyship must absolutely go and entreat him to give me another trial. It is too much, Grandmama. Do please to let me stay where I am. And worry me with no more schemes for my establishment in life. Be contented with the happiness which you have secured for Clara Poulain and Barnes, and leave me to take care of my poor father. Here I know I am doing right.
Here, at least, there is no such sorrow and doubt and shame for me as my friends have tried to make me endure. There is my father's bell. He likes me to be with him at breakfast and to read his paper to him. Stay a little, Ethel cried the Countess with a trembling voice. I am older than your father, and you owe me a little obedience. That is, if children do owe any obedience to their parents nowadays, I don't know. I am an old woman. The world perhaps has changed since my time, and it is you who ought to command, I dare say, and we to follow. Perhaps I have been wrong all through life. And in trying to teach my children to do as I was made to do. God knows I have had very little comfort from them, whether they did or whether they didn't.
You and Frank I had set my heart on. I loved you out of all my grandchildren. Was it very unnatural that I should wish to see you together? For that boy, I have been saving money these years past. He flies back to the arms of his mother. Who has been pleased to hate me as only such virtuous people can. Who took away my own son from me, and now his son, towards whom the only fault I ever committed was to spoil him and be too fond of him. Don't leave me too, my child. Let me have something that I can like at my years. And I like your pride, Ethel, and your beauty, my dear, and I am not angry with your hard words. And if I wish to see you in the place in life which becomes you, do I do wrong? No, silly girl.
There, give me the little hand. How hot it is! Mine is as cold as a stone, and shakes, doesn't it? Eh, it was a pretty hand once. What did Anne, what did your mother say to Frank's letter? I did not show it to her, Ethel answered. Let me see it, my dear whispered Lady Q, in a coaxing way. There it is, said Ethel, pointing to the fireplace, where there lay some torn fragments and ashes of paper. It was the same fireplace at which Clive's sketches had been burned.
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39 39 - Chapter 39: Amongst the Painters 40:03
Amongst the Painters. When Clive Newcomb comes to be old, no doubt he will remember his Roman days as amongst the happiest which fate ever awarded him. The simplicity of the student's life there, the greatness and friendly splendor of the scene surrounding him, the delightful nature of the occupation in which he is engaged. The pleasant company of comrades, inspired by a like pleasure over a similar calling, the labor, the meditation, the holiday and the kindly feast afterwards, should make the art students the happiest of youth. Did they but know their good fortune? Their work is for the most part delightfully easy. It does not exercise the brain too much, but gently occupies it. and with the subject most agreeable to the scholar.
The mere poetic flame, or jet of invention, needs to be lighted up, but very seldom, namely, when the young painter is devising his subject, or settling the composition thereof. The posing of figures and drapery, the dexterous copying of the line, the artful processes of cross-hatching, of stumping, of laying on lights and what not. The arrangement of color, and the pleasing operations of glazing and the like, are labors for the most part merely manual. These, with the smoking of a proper number of pipes, carry the student through his day's work. If you pass his door, you will very probably hear him singing at his easel. I should like to know what young lawyer, mathematician, or divinity scholar can sing over his volumes, and at the same time advance with his labor.
In every city where art is practiced, there are old gentlemen who never touched a pencil in their lives, but find the occupation and company of artists so agreeable that they are never out of the studios. Follow one generation of painters after another. Sit by with perfect contentment while Jack is drawing his piferoa, or Tom designing his cartoon, and years afterward when Jack is established in Newman Street, and Tom, a royal accommodation, shall still be found in their rooms, occupied now by fresh painters and pictures, telling the youngsters, their successors, what glorious fellows Jack and Tom were. A poet must retire to privy places and meditate his rhymes in secret. A painter can practice his trade in the company of friends.
Your splendid chef de col, a Rubens or Horace Vernet, may sit with the secretary reading to him, a troop of admiring scholars watching the master's hand, or a company of court ladies and gentlemen, to whom he addresses a few kind words now and again, Looking on admiringly, whilst the humblest painter, be he ever so poor, may have a friend watching at his easel, or a gentle wife sitting by with her work in her lap, and with fond smiles or talk or silence cheering his labor. Amongst all ranks and degrees of painters assembled at Rome, Mr. Clive found companions and friends. The cleverest man was not the best artist very often. The ablest artist not the best critic nor the best companion. Many a man could give no account of the faculty within him, but achieve success because he could not help it, and did, in an hour and without effort, that which another could not affect with half a life's labor.
They were young sculptors who never read a line of Homer. Who took on themselves, nevertheless, to interpret and continue the heroic Greek art. They were young painters with the strongest natural taste for low humor, comic singing, and side of cellar jollifications, who would imitate nothing under Michelangelo, and whose canvases teemed with tremendous allegories of fates, furies, genie of death and battle. There were long-haired lads who fancied the saubon ble in the Peruganesque manner, and depicted saintly personages with crisp draperies, crude colors, and halos of gold leaf. Our friend marked all these practitioners of art with their various oddities and tastes, and was welcomed in the atelieries of all of them, from the great dons and seniors, the senators of the French and English Academy, Down to the jovial students, who railed at the elders over their cheap cups at the leper.
What a gallant, starving, generous, kindly life many of them led. What fun in their grotesque hairs. What friendship and gentleness in their poverty. How splendidly Carlo talked to the Marquis, his cousin, and the Duke, his intimate friend. How great Federico was on the subject of his wrongs from the academy at home, a pack of tradesmen who could not understand high art, and who had never seen a good picture. With what haughtiness Augusto swaggered about at St. John's Soirees, though he was known to have borrowed Fernando's coat and Luigi's dress boots. If one or the other was ill, how nobly and generously his companions flocked to comfort him, took turns to nurse the sick man through nights of fever, contributed out of their slender means to help him through his difficulty.
Max, who loves fine dresses and the carnival so, gave up a costume and a carriage so as to help Paul, when he sold his picture through the agency of Pietro, with whom he had quarreled. and who recommended him to a patron, gave a third of the money back to Max, and took another third portion to Lazaro, with his poor wife and children, who had not got a single order all that winter. And so the story went on. I have heard Clive tell of two noble young Americans who came to Europe to study their art, of whom the one fell sick, whilst the other supported his penniless comrade, and out of sixpence a day absolutely kept but a penny for himself, giving the rest to his sick companion. I should like to have known that good Samaritan, sir," our colonel said, twirling his mustachios, when we saw him again.
And his son told him that story. J.J., in his steady, silent way, worked on every day, and for many hours every day. When Clive entered the studio of a morning, he found J.J. there, and there he left him. When the Life Academy was over at night, and Clive went out to his soirees, J.J. lighted his lamp and continued his happy labor. He did not care for the brawling supper parties of his comrades, liked better to stay at home than to go into the world, and was seldom a broad of a night except during the illness of Luigi before mentioned, when J.J. spent constant evenings at the other's bedside. J.J. was fortunate as well as skillful. People in the world took a liking to the modest young man, and he had more than one order for pictures.
The artist club at the Lepre set him down as close with his money, but a year after he left Rome, Lazaro and his wife, who still remained there, told a different tale. Clive Newcomb, when he heard of their distress, gave them something, as much as he could spare, but J.J. gave more. and Clive was as eager in acknowledging and admiring his friend's generosity as he was in speaking of his genius. His was a fortunate organization indeed. Study was his chief amusement. Self-denial came easily to him. Pleasure, or what is generally called so, had little charm for him. His ordinary companions were pure and sweet thoughts. His outdoor enjoyment, the contemplation of natural beauty. For recreation, the hundred pleasant dexterities and manipulations of his craft were ceaselessly interesting to him.
He would draw every knot in an oak panel, or every leaf in an orange tree, smiling and taking a gay delight over the simple feats of skill. Whenever you found him, he seemed watchful and serene. His modest virgin lamp always lighted and trim. No gusts of passion extinguished it. No hopeless wandering in the darkness afterwards led him astray. Wayfarers through the world, we meet now and again with such purity, and salute it, and hush whilst it passes on. We have it under Clive Newcomb's own signature, that he intended to pass a couple of years in Italy, devoting himself exclusively to the study of his profession. Other besides professional reasons were working secretly in the young man's mind, causing him to think that absence from England was the best cure for a malady under which he secretly labored.
But change of air may cure some sick people more speedily than the sufferers ever hoped. And also it is on record that young men with the very best intentions respecting study do not fulfill them, and are led away from their scheme by accident, or pleasure, or necessity, or some good cause. Young Clive worked sedulously two or three months at his vocation at Rome, secretly devouring, no doubt, the pangs of sentimental disappointment under which he labored. And he drew from his models, and he sketched round about everything that suited his pencil on both sides of Tiber, and he labored at the Life Academy of Knights, a model himself to other young students. The symptoms of his sentimental malady began to abate.
He took an interest in the affairs of Jack and Tom and Harry round about him. Art exercised its great healing influence on his wounded spirit, which, to be sure, had never given in. The meeting of the painters at the Café Greco and at their private houses was very jovial, pleasant, and lively. Clive smoked his pipe, drank his glass of masala, sang his song, and took part in the general chorus as gaily as the jolliest of the boys. He was the cock of the whole painting school. The favorite of all, and to be liked by the people, you may be pretty sure that we, for our parts, must like them. Then, besides the painters he had, as he had informed us, the other Society of Rome. Every winter there was a gay and pleasant English colony in that capital, of course more or less remarkable for rank, fashion, and agreeability with every varying year.
In Clive's year, some very pleasant folks set up their winter quarters in the usual foreigners' resort round about the Piazza d'Espagna. I was amused to find lately, looking over the travels of the respectable Monsieur de Polo-Lince, that a hundred and twenty years ago, the same quarter, the same streets and palaces, scarce changed from those days, were even then polite foreigners' resort. Of one or two of the gentlemen, Clive had made the acquaintance in the hunting field. Others he had met during his brief appearance in the London world. Being a youth of great personal agility, fitted thereby to the graceful performance of polkers, etc., having good manners, and good looks, and good credit with Prince Polony, or some other banker, Mr.
Newcomb was thus made very welcome to the Anglo-Roman society. And as kindly received in genteel houses, where they drank tea and danced the gallop. As in those dusky taverns and retired lodgings, where his bearded comrades, the painters, held their meetings. Thrown together every day, and night after night, flocking to the same picture galleries, statue galleries, pincy and drives, and church functions. The English colonists at Rome perforce became intimate, and in many cases friendly. They have an English library, where the various meats for the week are placarded. On such a day, the Vatican galleries are open. The next is the Feast of St. So-and-So. On Wednesday, there will be music and vespers at the Sistine Chapel.
On Thursday, the Pope will bless the animals, sheep, horses, and what not. And flocks of English accordingly rushed to witness the benediction of droves of donkeys. In a word, the ancient city of the Caesars, the august fanes of the Popes, with their splendor and ceremony, are all mapped out and arranged for English diversion. And we run in a crowd to High Mass at St. Peter's, or to the illumination on Easter Day. As we run when the bells ring to the Boschianian at Cremon, or the fireworks at Fohal. Running to see fireworks alone, rushing off to examine Boschianian by oneself, is a dreary work. I should think very few men would have the courage to do it unattended, and personally would not prefer a pipe in their own rooms.
Hence if Clive went to see all these sights as he did, it is to be concluded that he went in company. And if he went in company and sought it, we may suppose that little affair which annoyed him at Baden no longer tended to hurt his peace of mind very seriously. The truth is, our countrymen are pleasanter abroad than at home, most hospitable, kindly, and eager to be pleased and to please. You see a family half a dozen times a week in the little Roman circle, whom you shall not meet twice in a season afterwards in the enormous London round. When Easter is over and everybody is going away at Rome, you and your neighbor shake hands, sincerely sorry to part. In London, we are obliged to delude our kindness so that there is hardly any smack of the original milk.
As one by one the pleasant families dropped off with whom Clive had spent his happy winter, as Admiral Freeman's carriage drove away, whose pretty girls he had caught at St. Peter's kissing St. Peter's toe, as Dick Denby's family arc appeared with all Denby's sweet young children kissing farewells to him out of the window. As those three charming Miss Bayloves, with whom he had had that glorious day in the catacombs, as friend after friend quitted the great city, with kind greetings, warm pressures of the hand, and hopes of meeting in a yet greater city on the banks of the Thames. Young Clive felt a depression of spirit. Rome was Rome, but it was pleasanter to see it in company. Our painters are smoking still at the Oves Greco.
But a society all smoke and all painters did not suit him. If Mr. Clive is not a Michelangelo, or a Beethoven, or if his genius is not gloomy, solitary, gigantic, shining alone like a lighthouse, a storm round about him, and Blake is dashing at his feet, I cannot help myself. He is as heaven made him. Brave! Honest, gay, and friendly, and persons of a gloomy turn, must not look to him as a hero. So Clive and his companion worked away with all their hearts from November until far into April when Easter came, and the glorious gala with which the Roman Church celebrates that holy season. By this time, Clive's books were full of sketches. Ruins, imperial and medieval, peasants and bagpipe men. Passionists with shaven poles, capuchins and equally hairy frequenters of the Café Greco, painters of all nations who resort there, cardinals and their queer equipagers and attendants, the Holy Father himself.
It was Gregory XVI of the name. The dandified English Onopincio and the wonderful Roman members of the hunt were not all these designed by the young man. and admired by his friends in after days. J.J.'s sketches were few, but he had painted two beautiful little pictures and sold them for so good a price that Prince Paloma's people were quite civil to him. He had orders for yet more pictures, and having worked very hard, thought himself authorized to accompany Mr. Clive upon a pleasure trip to Naples, which the latter deemed necessary after his own tremendous labors. He, for his part, had painted no pictures, though he had commenced a dozen and turned them to the wall. But he had sketched, and dined, and smoked, and danced, as we have seen.
So the little Britska was put behind horses again, and our two friends set out on their tour, having quite a crowd of brother artists to cheer them. who had assembled and had a breakfast of the purpose at that comfortable austere near the lantern gate. How the fellows flung their hats up and shouted, Le Vivo, and Adieu, and God bless you, old boy, in many languages. Clive was the young swell of the artists of that year, and adored by the whole of the jolly company. His sketches were pronounced on all hands to be admirable. It was agreed that if he chose, He might do anything. So with promises of a speedy return, they left behind them the noble city, which all love was once have seen it, and of which we think afterwards ever, with the kindness and the regard of home.
They dashed across the Campania and over the beautiful hills of Albano, and sped through the solemn Pontine marshes, and stopped to roost at terracing. Which was not at all like Fra Diabolo's terracing at Covent Garden, as J.J. was distressed to remark. And so, galloping onwards through a hundred ancient cities that crumbled on the shores of the beautiful Mediterranean, behold, on the second day as they ascended a hill about noon, Vesuvius came in view, its great shape shimmering blue in the distant haze, its banner of smoke in the cloudless sky. And about five o'clock in the evening, as everybody will who starts from terracing early and pays the postboy well, the travelers came to an ancient city, walled and fortified, with drawbridges over the shiny moats.
Here is Capua, says J.J., and Clive burst out laughing, thinking of his Capua, which he had left how many months, years it seemed to go. From Capua to Naples is a fine straight road, and our travelers were landed at the latter place at supper time, where, if they had quarters at the Vittoria Hotel, they were as comfortable as any gentleman painters need wish to be in this world. The aspect of the place was so charming and delightful to Clive. The beautiful sea stretched before his eyes when waking. Capri, A fairy island in the distance, in the amethyst rocks of which sirens might be playing. That fair line of cities skirting the shore, glittering white along the purple water. Over the whole brilliant scene, Vesuvius rising, with cloudlets playing round its summit, and the country bursting out into that glorious vegetation, with which sumptuous nature decorates every spring.
This city and scene of Naples was so much to Clive's liking that I have a letter from him dated a couple of days after the young man's arrival, in which he announces the intention of staying there forever, and gives me an invitation to some fine lodgings in a certain palazzo, on which he has cast his eye. He is so enraptured with the place that he says to die and be buried there even would be quite a treat. So charming is the cemetery, with a Neapolitan dead repose. The Fates did not, however, ordain that Clive Newcomb should pass all his life at Naples. His Roman banker presently forwarded a few letters to his address, some which had arrived after his departure. Others which had been lying at the post-restant, with his name written in perfectly legible characters, but which the authorities of the post, according to their custom, would not see when Clive sent for them.
It was one of these letters which Clive clutched the most eagerly. It had been lying since October, actually, at the Roman post, though Clive had asked for letters there a hundred times. It was that little letter from Ethel. in reply to his own, whereof we have made mention in a previous chapter. There was not much in the little letter, nothing, of course, that Virtue or Grandmama might not read over the young moiter's shoulder. It was affectionate, simple, rather melancholy, described in a few words, Sir Brian's seizure and present condition, spoke of Lord Q, who was mending rapidly, As if Clive, of course, was aware of his accident, of the children, of Clive's father, and ended with a hearty, God bless you, to Clive from his sincere Ethel.
You boast of its being over. You see it is not over, says Clive's monitor and companion. Else, why should you have dashed at that letter before all the others, Clive? J.J. had been watching. Not without interest, Clive's blank face as he read the young lady's note. How do you know who wrote the letter, asked Clive? I can read the signature in your face, says the other, and I could almost tell the contents of the note. Why have you such a telltale face, Clive? It is over, but when a man has once, you know, gone through an affair like that, says Clive, looking very grave. He's anxious to hear of Alice Gray, and how she's getting on, you see, my good friend. And he began to shout out, as of old, Her heart it is another's.
She never can be mine. And to laugh at the end of the song. Well, well, says he. It is a very kind note, a very proper little note, the expression elegant. J.J. The sentiment is most correct. All the little T's most properly crossed, and all the little I's have dots over their little heads. It's a sort of prize note, don't you see? And one such, as in the old spelling-book story, the good boy received a plum-cake for writing. Perhaps you weren't educated on the old spelling-book, J.J. My good old father taught me to read out of his. I say, I think it was a shame to keep the old boy waiting, whilst I have been giving an audience to this young lady. Dear old father," and he apostrophized the letter, I beg your pardon, sir.
Miss Newcomb requested five minutes' conversation, and I was obliged, from politeness, you know, to receive. There's nothing between us, nothing but what's most correct, upon my honor and conscience. And he kissed his father's letter, and calling out again, Dear old father, proceeded to read as follows. Your letters, my dearest Clive, have been the greatest comfort to me. I seem to hear you as I read them. I can't but think that this, the modern and natural style, is a great progress upon the old-fashioned manner of my day, when we used to begin to our fathers, Honored Father. Or even Honored Sir. Some precisions used to write still by Mr. Lord's Academy at Tooting, where I went before Greyfriars, though I suspect parents were no more honored in those days than nowadays.
I know one who I'd rather be trusted than honored, and you may call me what you please, so as you do that. It is not only to me your letters give pleasure. Last week I took yours from Baden-Baden No. 3, September 15, into Calcutta, and could not help showing it at Government House, where I dined. Your sketch of the old Russian princess and her little boy, gambling, was capital. Colonel Buckmaster, Lord Bagwig's private secretary, knew her, and says it is to a T. And I read out to some of my young fellows what you said about play. "'And how you had given it over. I very much fear some of the young rogues are a dice and brandy-pony before Tiffin. What you say of young Ridley? I take Cungrono. His sketches, I thought, were very agreeable, depper to compare them to a certain gentleman's.
Never mind. I shall not try to make him think too well of himself. I kiss dear Ethel's hand in your letter. I write her a long letter by this mail. If Paul de Florac in any way resembles his mother, between you and him there ought to be a very warm regard. I knew her when I was a boy, long before you were born or thought of, and in wandering forty years through the world since, I have seen no woman in my eyes so good or so beautiful. Your cousin Ethel reminded me of her, as handsome, but not so lovely. Yes, it was that pale lady you saw at Paris, with eyes full of care and hair streaked with gray. So it will be the turn of you, young folks. Come eight more lustres, and your heads will be bald like mine or gray like Madame de Florac's, and bending over the ground where we are lying in quiet.
I understand from you that young Paul is not in very flourishing circumstances. If he still is in need, mind and be his banker, and I will be yours. Any child of hers must never want when I have a spare guinea. I do not mind telling you, sir, that I cared for her more than millions of guineas once, and have broke my heart about her when I went to India as a young chap. So, if any such misfortunes happen to you, consider my boy, You are not the only one. Benny writes me word that he has been ailing. I hope you are a good correspondent with him. What made me turn to him just after speaking of unlucky love affairs? Could I be thinking about little Rosie Mackenzie? She is a sweet little lass, and James will leave her a pretty piece of money.
For a bon sap. I should like you to marry. But God forbid you should marry for a million of gold mohers. And gold mohers bring me to another subject. Do you know I narrowly miss losing half a lakh of rupees, which I had at agents here? And who do you think warned me about him? Our friend Roman Law, who has lately been in England, and with whom I made the voyage from Southampton. He is a man of wonderful tact and observation. I used to think meanly of the honesty of natives and treat them haughtily, as I recollect doing this very gentleman at your Uncle Newcomb's in Briarstone Square. He heaped coals of fire on my head by saving my money for me, and I have placed it with interest in his house.
If I would but listen to him, my capital might be troubled in a year, he says, and the interest immensely increased. He enjoys the greatest esteem among the moneyed men here, keeps a splendid establishment and house here in Barakbor, is princely in his benefactions. He talks to me about the establishment of a bank, of which the profits are so enormous and the scheme so, seemingly, clear, that I don't know whether I mayn't be tempted to take a few shares.
Several of my friends are longing to have a finger in it, but be sure of this. I shall do nothing rashly and without the very best advice. I have not been frightened yet by your drafts upon me. Draw as many of these as you please. You know I don't half like the other kind of drawing, except as a de la saison. But if you chose to be a weaver like my grandfather, I should not say you nay. Don't stint yourself of money or of honest pleasure. Of what good is money, unless we can make those we love happy with it? There would be no need for me to save if you were to save too. So, and as you know as well as I, what our means are, in every honest way use them. I should like you not to pass the whole of next year in Italy, but to come home and pay a visit to Honest James Binney.
I wonder how the old barrack in Fitzroy Square looks without me. Try and go round by Paris on your way home, and pay your visit, and carry your father's fond remembrances to Madame la Comtesse de Florac. I don't say remember me to my brother, as I write Brian by this mail. Adieu, Monfils. Je te brasse, and am always my Clive's affectionate father, T.N. Isn't he a noble old Trump? That point had been settled by the young men any time these three years, and now Mr. J.J. remarked that when Clive had read his father's letter once, then he read Ethel's over again and put it in his breast pocket and was very disturbed in mind that day, pishing and shawing at the statue gallery which they went to see at the museo.
After all, says Clive, What rubbish these second-rate statues are! What a great hulking abortion is this brood of Farnese Hercules! There's only one bit in the whole gallery that is worth a two-penny piece. It was the beautiful fragment called Psyche. J.J. smiled at his comrades, spoke in admiration of this statue, in the slim shape, in the delicate formation of the neck, in the haughty, virginal expression. The psyche is not unlike the Diana of the Louvre, and the Diana of the Louvre, we have said, was like a certain young lady. After all, continues Clive, looking up at the great knotted legs of that clumsy caricatured porter which, like in the Athenian, sculptured in bad times of art, surely.
She could not write otherwise than she did, don't you see? Her letter is quite kind and affectionate. "'You see,' she says, "'she shall always hear of me with pleasure. "'Hope shall come back soon, and bring some good pictures with me, "'since pictures I will do.' "'She thinks small beer of painters, J.J.' "'Well, we don't think small beer of ourselves, my noble friend. "'I, I suppose it must be over by this time, "'and I may write to her as the Countess of Q.' The custode of the apartment had seen admiration and wonder expressed by hundreds of visitors to his marble giant, but he had never known Hercules' occasion of motion before, as in the case of the young stranger, who, after staring a while at the statue, dashed his hand across his forehead with a groan, and walked away from before the graven image of the huge strong man, who had himself been made such a fool by women.
My father wants me to go and see James and Madame de Florex, says Clive, as they stride down the street to the Toledo. J.J. puts his arm through his companions, which is deep the pocket of his velvet poutletot. You must not go home till you hear it is over, Clive, whispers J.J. Of course not, old boy, says the other, blowing tobacco out of his shaking head. Not very long after their arrival, we may be sure they went to Pompeii, of which place, as this is not an Italian tour, but a history of Clive Newcomb, Esquire, and his most respectable family, we shall offer to give no description. The young man had read Sir Bulwer-Lytton's delightful story, which has become the history of Pompeii. Before they came thither, In Pliny's description, I put the guide-book, admiring the wonderful ingenuity with which the English writer had illustrated the place by his text, as if the houses were so many pictures to which he had appended a story.
Clive the Wag, who was always indulging his vein for caricature, was proposing that they should take the same place, names, people, and make a burlesque story. What would be a better figure, says he, than Pliny's mother, whom the historian describes as exceedingly corpulent, and walking away from the catastrophe with slaves holding cushions behind her, to shield her plump person from the cinders? Yes, oh, Mrs. Pliny shall be my heroine, says Clive. A picture of her on a dark gray paper, and touched up with red at the extremities, exists in Clive's album to the present day. As they were laughing, rattling, wondering, mimicking, the cicerone attending them with his nasal twaddle, a non-pausing and silent, yielding to the melancholy pity and wonder which the aspect of that strange and smiling place inspires.
Behold, they come upon another party of English, two young men accompanying a lady. "'What Clive?' cries one. "'My dear, dear Lord Q,' shouts the other. And as the young man rushes up and grasps the two hands of the other, they begin to blush. Lord Q and his family resided in a neighboring hotel on the Chiaffa at Naples. And that very evening, on returning from the Pompeii excursion, the two painters were invited to take tea by those friendly persons. J.J. excused himself and stayed at home drawing all night. Clive went, and passed a pleasant evening, in which all sorts of future tours and pleasure parties were projected by the young men. They were to visit Pestum, Capri, Sicily, Why not Malta in the East?
asked Lord Q. Lady Walham was alarmed. Had not Q been in the East already? Clive was surprised and agitated, too. Could Q think of going to the East, and making long journeys when he had? He had other engagements that would necessitate his return home? No, he must not go to the East, Lord Q's mother avowed. Q had promised to stay with her during the summer at Castel Mare, and Mr. Newcomb must come and paint their portraits there, all their portraits. She would like to have an entire picture gallery of Q's, if her son would remain at home during the sittings. At an early hour, Lady Wallen retired to rest, exacting Clive's promise to come to Castel Mare. And George Barnes disappeared to array himself in an evening costume and to pay his round of visits as become a young diplomatist.
This part of diplomatic duty does not commence until after the opera at Naples, and society begins when the rest of the world has gone to bed. Cue when Clive sate till one o'clock in the morning when the latter returned to his hotel. Not one of those fine parties at Pestrum, Sicily, etc. was carried out. Clive did not go to the East at all, and it was J.J. who painted Lil' Q's portrait that summer at Casa Lamar. The next day Clive went for his passport to the Embassy, an esteema departing direct from Marseille on that very afternoon. Behold, Mr. Newcomb was on board of her. Lord Q and his brother and J.J. waving their hats to him as the vessel left the shore. Away went the ship, cleaving swiftly through the azure waters, but not swiftly enough for Clive.
J.J. went back with a sigh to his sketchbook and easels. I suppose the other young disciple of art had heard something which caused him to forsake his sublime mistress for one who was much more capricious and earthly.
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40 40 - Chapter 40: Returns from Rome to Pall Mall 26:53
and the two gentlemen who occupied the third-floor chambers there in partnership were engaged, as their custom was over their pipes and their manuscripts and their Times newspaper. Behold, a fresh sunshine burst into their room in the person of a young Clive. With a bronzed face, and a yellow beard and mustachios, and those bright cheerful eyes, the sight of which was always so welcome to both of us. What Clive? What the young one? What Benjamin? Shout Pendennis and Warrington. Clive had obtained a very high place indeed in the latter's affections, so much so. That if I could have found it in my heart to be jealous of such a generous brave fellow, I might have grudged him his share of Warrington's regard.
He blushed up with pleasure to see us again. Pigeon, our boy, introduced him with a jubilant countenance, and Flanagan, the laundress, came smirking out of the bedroom, eager to get a nod of recognition from him. And bestow a smile of welcome upon everybody's favorite, Clive. In two minutes, an armchair full of magazines, slips of copy, and books for review was emptied over the neighboring coal scuttle, and Clive was in the seat, a cigar in his mouth, as comfortable as if he had never been away. When did he come? Last night. He was back in Charlotte Street at his old lodgings. He had been to breakfast in Fitzroy Square that morning. James Binney chirped for joy at seeing him. His father had written to him, desiring him to come back and see James Binney.
Pretty Miss Rosie was very well, thank you. And Mrs. Mack? Wasn't Mrs. Mackenzie delighted to behold him? Come, sir, on your honoring conscience. Didn't the widow give you a kiss on your return? Clive sends an uncut number of the Pell-Mell Gazette flying across the room at the head of the Enquirer, but blushes as sweetly that I had very little doubt some pretty meeting had taken place. What a pity it is he had not been here a short while since for a marriage in high life, to give away his dear Barnes, and sign the book, along with the other dignitaries. We described that ceremony to him, and announced the promotion of his friend Florac, now our friend also, director of the great Anglo-Gallic Railway, the Prince de Montcouture.
Then Clive told us of his deeds during the winter, of the good fun he had had at Rome, and the jolly fellows he had met there. Was he going to astonish the world by some grand pictures? He was not. The more he worked, the more discontented he was with his performance somehow. But J.J. was coming out very strong. J.J. was going to be a stunner. We turned with pride and satisfaction to that very number of the Pell-Mell Gazette, which the youth had flung at us, and showed him a fine article by F. Bayham Esquire. In which the picture sent home by J.J. was enthusiastically lauded by the great critic. So he was back amongst us, and it seemed that yesterday he had quitted us. To Londoners, everything seems to have happened but yesterday.
Nobody has time to miss his neighbor who goes away. People go to the Cape, or on a campaign, or on a tour around the world, or to India. And we turn with a wife and two or three children, and we fancy it was only the other day they left us. So engaged is every man in his individual speculations, studies, struggles. So selfish does our life make us. Selfish, but not ill-natured. We are glad to see an old friend, though we do not weep when he leaves us. We humbly acknowledge, if fate calls us away likewise, that we are no more missed than any other atom. After talking for a while, Mr. Clive must needs go into the city where their eye accompanied him. His interview with Messrs. Jolly and Baines at the House in Fog Court must have been very satisfactory.
Clive came out of the parlor with a radiant countenance. "'Do you want any money, old boy?' says he. "'The dear old governor has placed a jolly sum to my account, and Mr. Baines has told me how delighted Mrs. Baines and the girls will be to see me at dinner. He says my father has made a lucky escape out of one house in India, and a famous investment in another. Nothing could be more civil.' How uncommonly kind and friendly everybody is in London. Everybody. Then, bestowing ourselves in a handsome cab, which had probably just deposited some other capital list in the city, we made for the west end of the town, where Mr. Clive had some important business to transact with his tailors. He discharged his outstanding little account with easy liberality.
Blushing as he pulled out of his pocket a new checkbook, page one of which he bestowed on the delighted artist. From Mr. B's job to Mr. True Fitz, it is but a step. Our young friend was induced to enter the hairdressers and leave behind him a great portion of the flowing logs and the yellow beard, which he had brought with him from Rome. With his mustachios, he could not be induced to part. Painters and cavalry officers having a right to those decorations. And why should not this young fellow wear smart clothes and a smart mustache and look handsome and take his pleasure and bask in his sun when it's shown? Time enough for flannel and a fire when the winter comes, and for gray hair and cork-soled boots in the natural decline of years.
Then we went to pay a visit at a hotel in German Street to our friend Florak, who was now magnificently lodged there. A powdered giant lolling in the hall, his buttons emblazoned with prodigious coronets, took our cards up to the prince. As the door of an apartment on the first floor opened, we heard a cry as of joy, and that nobleman in a magnificent Persian dressing gown. Rushing from the room, plunged down the stairs and began kissing Clive, to the respectful astonishment of the titan in livery. "'Come that I present you, my friends,' our good little Frenchman exclaimed. "'To Madame La, to my wife!' We entered the drawing-room. A demure little, little lady, of near sixty years of age, was seated there.
And we were presented in form to Madame Princese de Mocantour, nay, Hig, of Manchester. She made us a stiff little curtsy, but looked not ill-natured. Indeed, few women could look at Clive Newcomb's gallant figure, and brave smile in countenance, and keep a frown on their own very long. I have heard of you from somebody else besides the prince, said the lady. with rather a blush. Your uncle has spoke to me often about you, Mr. Clive, and about your good father. C'est son, directeur, whispers Flora to me. I wondered which of the firm of Newcombe had taken that office upon him. Now you are come to England, the lady continued, whose Lancashire pronunciation being once indicated, we shall henceforth, out of respect, To the prince's rank, generally pretermint.
Now you will come to England. We hope to see you often. Not here in this noisy hotel, which I can't bear, but in the country. Our house is only three miles from Newcomb. Not such a grand place as your uncle's, but I hope we shall see you there a great deal. And your friend Mr. Pendennis, if he is passing that way. The invitation to Mr. Pendennis, I am bound to say, was given in terms by no means so warm as those in which the Princess's hospitality to Clive were professed. "'Shall we meet at your uncle Obsons?' the lady continued to Clive. "'His wife is a most charming, well-informed woman, has been most kind and civil, and we dine there today.' Barnes and his wife is gone to spend the honeymoon at Newcomb.
Lady Clara is a sweet, dear thing, and her pa and ma most affable, I am sure. What a pity Sir Brian couldn't attend the marriage. There was everybody there in London, almost. Sir Harvey Diggs says he is mending very slowly. In life we are in death, Mr. Newcomb. Isn't it sad to think of him, in the midst of all his splendor and prosperity, and he so infirm and unable to enjoy them? But let us hope for the best, and that his health will soon come round." With these and similar remarks, in which poor Florak took but a very small share, for he seemed dumb and melancholy in the company of the princess, his elderly spouse, the visit sped on. Mr. Pendennis, to whom very little was said, having leisure to make his silent observations upon the person to whom he had been just presented.
As there lay on the table two neat little packages addressed, the Princess de Montcontour, an envelope to the same address, with the prescription, number 9396, further inscribed on the paper, and a sheet of notepaper. I was led to believe that the Lady of Moncventure was, or fancied herself, in a delicate state of health. By the side of the physic for the body was medicine for the soul, a number of pretty little books in Middle-Age bindings, and antique type, many of theist. Adorned with pictures of the German school, representing demure ecclesiastics, with their heads on one side, children in long starched nightgowns, virgins bearing lilies, and so forth, from which it was to be concluded that the owner of the volumes was not so hostile to Rome as she had been at an earlier period of her religious life, and that she had migrated, in spirit, from Clapham to Knightsbridge.
So many wealthy, mercantile families have likewise done in the body. A long strip of embroidery of the Gothic pattern furthermore betrayed her present inclinations, and the person observing these things, whilst nobody was taking any notice of him, was amused when the accuracy of his conjectures was confirmed by the reappearance of the gigantic footman, calling out, "'Onnie, man!' in a loud voice." and preceding that divine into the room. C'est le directeur, venifieux mesdans' mochambre pen, growled Florac as Honeyman came sliding over the carpet, his elegant smile changing to a blush when he beheld Clive, his nephew, seated by the princess's side. This, then, was the uncle who had spoken about Clive and his father to Madame de Florac.
Charles seemed in the best condition. He held out two brand-new lavender-colored kid gloves to shake hands with his dear Clive. Florak and Mr. Pendennis vanished out of the room as he appeared, so that no precise account can be given of this affecting interview. When I quitted the hotel, A brown brogum with a pair of beautiful horses, the harness and panels emblazoned with the neatest little ducal coronets you ever saw, and a cipher under each crown, as easy to read as the arrow-headed inscriptions on one of Mr. Laird's Assyrian chariots, was in waiting, and I presume that Madame la Princesse was about to take an airing. Clive had passed the avuncular banking house in the city, without caring to face his relatives there.
Mr. Newcomb was now in sole command, Mr. Barnes being absent at Newcomb. The baronet, little likely, ever to enter bank parlor again. But his bounding duty was to wait on the ladies. And, of course, only for duty's sake, he went the very first day and called in Park Lane. The family was absent ever since the marriage summary last week. The fortman, who had accompanied the party to Baden, informed Clive when he opened the door and recognized that gentleman. Sir Brian pretty well, thank you, sir. The family was at Brighton. That is Miss Newcomb is in London, staying with her grandmama in Queen Street. Mayfair, sir. The varnished drawers closed upon Jeans within. The brazen knockers grinned their familiar grin at Clive, and he went down the blank steps, discomfited.
Must it be owned that he went to a club and looked in the directory for the number of Lady Q's house in Queen Street? Her ladyship had a furnished house for the season. No such noble name to be found among the inhabitants of Queen Street. Mr. Hobson was from home, that is. Thomas had orders not to admit strangers on certain days or before certain hours, so that Aunt Hobson saw Clive without being seen by the young man. I cannot say how much he regretted that mischance. His visits of propriety were thus all paid, and he went off to dine dutifully with James Binney. After which meal, he came to a certain rendezvous given to him by some bachelor friends for the evening. James Binney's eyes lightened up with pleasure on beholding his young Clive.
The youth, obedient to his father's injunction, had hastened to Fitzroy Square immediately after taking possession of his old lodgings, his during the time of his absence. The old properties and carved cabinets, the picture of his father looking melancholy out of the canvas, greeted Clive strangely on the afternoon of his arrival. No wonder he was glad to get away from his solitude, peopled with a number of dismal recollections, to the near hospitality of Fitzroy Square and his guardian and friend there. James had not improved in health during Clive's ten months absence. He had never been able to walk well, or to take his accustomed exercise after his fall. He was no more used to writing than the late Mr.
Gibbon, whose person James's somewhat resembled, and of whose philosophy our Scottish friend was an admiring scholar. The Colonel gone. James would have arguments with Mr. Honeyman over their claret. Bring down the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the decline and fall upon him, and quite get the better of the clergyman. James, like many other skeptics, was very obstinate, and for his part believed that almost all Parsons had as much belief as the Roman augurs in their ceremonies. Certainly, poor Honeyman, in their controversies, gave up one article after another. Flying from James's assault. But the battle over, Charles Honeyman would pick up these accoutrements which he had flung away in his retreat, wet them dry, and put them on again.
Lamed by his fall, and obliged to remain much within doors, where certain society did not always amuse him, James Binney sought excitement in the pleasures of the table. Partaking of them the more freely now that his health could afford them the less. Clive, the sly rogue, observed a great improvement in the commissariat since his good father's time, ate his dinner with thankfulness, and made no remarks. Nor did he confide to us for a while his opinion that Mrs. Mack bored the good gentleman most severely, that he pined away under her kindnesses. Sneaked off to his study chair in his nap, was only too glad when some of the widow's friends came, or she went out, seeming to breathe more freely when she was gone, and drink his wine more cheerily when rid of the intolerable weight of her presence.
I protest the great ills of life are nothing. The loss of your fortune is a mere flea-bite. The loss of your wife—how many men have supported it and married comfortably afterwards? It is not what you lose, but what you have daily to bear that is hard. I can fancy nothing more cruel, after a long easy life of bachelorhood, than to have to sit day after day with the dull, handsome woman opposite. To have to answer her speeches about the weather, housekeeping and what not. To smile appropriately when she is disposed to be lively. That laughing at the jokes is the hardest part. And to model your conversation so as to suit her intelligence, knowing that a word used out of its downright signification will not be understood by your fair breakfast maker.
Women go through this simpering and smiling life, and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's or father's jokes and stories time after time, and would not laugh at breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he told them? Flattery is their nature. To coax, flatter, and sweetly be fool someone is every woman's business. She is none if she declines this office. But men are not provided with such powers of humbug or endurance. They perish and pine away miserably when bored, or they shrink off to the club or public house for comfort. I want to say as delicately as I can, and never liking to use rough terms regarding a handsome woman, that Mrs. McKenzie Herself being in the highest spirits and the best humor, extinguished her half-brother, James Benny Esquire, that she was as a malaria to him, poisoning his atmosphere, numbing his limbs, destroying his sleep.
That day after day, as he sat down at breakfast, and she leveled commonplaces at her dearest James, her dearest James became more wretched unto her. And no one could see what his complaint was. He called in the old physicians at the club. He dosed himself with Poppy, and Mandragora, and Blue Pill. Lower and lower went poor James's Mercury. If he wanted to move to Brighton or Cheltenham, well and good. Whatever were her engagements, or whatever pleasure darling Rosie might have in store, dear thing, At her age, my dear Mrs. Newcomb, would not one do all to make a young creature happy? Under no circumstances could I think of leaving my poor brother. Mrs. Mackenzie thought herself a most highly principled woman.
Mrs. Newcomb had also a great opinion of her. These two ladies had formed a considerable friendship in the past months. The captain's widow having an unaffected reverence for the banker's lady, and thinking her one of the best-informed and most superior women in the world. When she had a high opinion of a person, Mrs. Mack always wisely told it. Mrs. Newcomb, in her turn, thought Mrs. Mackenzie a very clever, agreeable, ladylike woman. Not accomplished, but one could not have everything. "'No, no, my dear,' says Simple Hobson. "'Never would do to have every woman as clever as you are, Maria. Women would have it all their own way, then.' Maria, as her custom was, thanked God for being so virtuous and clever, and graciously admitted Mrs.
and Miss Mackenzie into the circle of adorers of that supreme virtue and talent. Mr. Newcomb took little Rosie and her mother to some parties. When any took place in Brionstone Square, they were generally allowed to come to tea. When on the second day of his arrival the dutiful Clive went to dine with Mr. James, the ladies, in spite of their rafters at his return and delighted seeing him, were going in the evening to his aunt. Their talk was about the princess all dinner time. The prince and princess were to dine in Brionstone Square. The princess had ordered such and such things at the jewelers. The princess would take rank over an English girl's daughter, over Lady Anne Newcomb, for instance.
Oh dear, I wish the prince and princess were smothered in the tower, growled Charmes Benny. Since you have got acquainted with them, I have never heard of anything else. Clive, like a wise man, kept his counsel about the prince and princess, with whom we have seen that he had had the honor of an interview that very day. But after dinner, Rosie came round and whispered to her mama, and after Rosie's whisper, mama flung her arms around Rosie's neck and kissed her, and called her a thoughtful darling. What do you think this creature says, Clive? says Mrs. Mack, still holding her darling's little hand. I wonder I had not thought of it myself. What is it, Mrs. McKenzie asked Clive, laughing. She says, why should not you come to your aunt's with us?
We are sure Mrs. Newcomb would be most happy to see you. Rosie, with a little hand put to Mama's mouth, said, why did you tell, you naughty Mama? Isn't she a naughty Mama, Uncle James? More kisses follow after this Sally, of which Uncle James receives one with perfect complacency, Mama crying out as Rosie retires to dress. That darling child is always thinking of others. Always. Clive says he will sit in Smokishirrut with Mr. Binney if they please. James's countenance falls. We have left off that sort of thing here, my dear Clive. A long time. cries Mrs. McKenzie, departing from the dining room. But we have improved the claret, Clive, my boy, whispers Uncle James. Let us have another bottle, and we will drink to the dear Colonel's good health and speedy return.
God bless him. I say, Clive, Tom seems to have had a most fortunate escape out of Winter's house, thanks to our friend, Marmon Lawl. And to have got into a capital good thing with this Bundelkund Bank. They speak famously of it at Hanover Square, and I see that her cura quotes the shares at a premium already. Clive did not know anything about the Bundelkund Bank, except a few words found in a letter from his father, which he had in the city this morning. And an uncommonly liberal remittance the governor has sent me home, sir. Upon which they fill another bumper to the Colonel's health. Mama and Rosie come and show their pretty pink dresses before going to Mrs. Newcomb's, and Clive lights a cigar in the hall.
And isn't there a jubilation at the haunt when the young fellow's face appears above the smoke clouds there?
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41 41 - Chapter 41: An Old Story 41:57
Many of Clive's Roman friends were by this time come to London, and the young man renewed his acquaintance with them, and had speedily a considerable circle of his own. He thought fit to allow himself a good horse or two, and appeared in the park among other young dandies. He and Monsieur de Montcontour were sworn allies. Lord Ferrum, Who had purchased J.J.'s picture was Clive's very good friend. Major Pendennis himself pronounced him to be a young fellow of agreeable manners, and very favorably viewed, as the Major happened to know, in some very good quarters. Ere many days Clive had been to Brighton to see Lady Anne and Sir Brian, and good Aunt Honeyman. in whose house the baronet was lodged, and I suppose he found out, by some means or other, where Lady Q.
lived in Mayfair. But her ladyship was not at home, nor was she at home on the second day, nor did there come any note from Ethel to her cousin. She did not ride in the park as of old. Clive, bienveu, as he was, did not belong to that great world as yet. In which he would be pretty sure to meet her every night at one of those parties where everybody goes. He read her name in the paper morning after morning, as having been present at Lady This Is Entertainment and Lady That's Ministerial Reunion. At first, he was too shy to tell what the state of the case was, and took nobody into his confidence regarding his little tundra. There he was riding through Queen Street Mayfair, a tired and splendid raiment, never missing the park, actually going to places of worship in the neighborhood, and frequenting the opera, a waste of time which one would never have expected in the youth of his nurture.
At length, a certain observer of human nature, remarking his state, rightly conjectured that he must be in love. And taxed him with the soft impeachment, on which the young man, no doubt anxious to open his heart to someone, poured out all that story which has before been narrated, and told how he thought his passion cured, and how it was cured. But when he heard from Q at Naples that the engagement was over between him and Miss Newcomb, Clive found his own flame kindled again with new ardor. He was wild to see her. He dashed off from Naples instantly receiving the news that she was free. He had been ten days in London without getting a glimpse of her. That Mrs. Mackenzie bothers me so. I hardly know where to turn," said poor Clive.
And poor little Rosie is made to write me a note about something twice a day. She's a good dear little thing, little Rosie. And I really had thought once of, of, oh, never mind that. Oh, Penn, I'm up another tree now, and a poor, miserable young beggar I am. In fact, Mr. Penn Dennens was installed at Confidant, vice J.J., absent on leave. This is a part which, especially for a few days, the present biographer has always liked well enough. For a while, at least, I think almost every man or woman is interesting when in love. If you know of two or three such affairs going on in any soiree to which you may be invited, is not the party straightway amusing? Yonder goes Augustus Tompkins, working his way through the rooms to that far corner where demure Miss Hopkins is seated.
To whom the stupid grinning bumpkins thinks he is making himself agreeable. Yonder sits Miss Fanny, distraught, and yet trying to smile as the captain is talking his folly, the parson his glib compliments. And see, her face lights up all of a sudden, her eyes beam with delight at the captain's stories, and at that delightful young clergyman likewise. It is because Augustus has appeared. Their eyes only meet for one semi-second, but that is enough for Miss Fanny. Go on, Captain, with your twaddle. Proceed, my reverend friend, with your smirking commonplaces. In the last two minutes, the world has changed for Miss Fanny. That moment has come for which she has been fidgeting and longing and scheming all day.
How different an interest, I say, as a meeting of people for a philosopher who knows of a few such little secrets, to that which a vulgar looker on feels who comes but to eat the ices and stare at the ladies' dresses in beauty. There are two frames of mind under which London society is bearable to a man. To be an actor in one of those sentimental performances above hinted at, Or to be a spectator and watch it. But as for the mere desoste carte, would not an armchair and the dullest of books be better than that dull game? So I not only became Clive's confidant in this affair, but took a pleasure in extracting the young fellow's secrets from him, or rather in encouraging him to pour them forth.
Thus was the great part of the previous tale revealed to me. Thus, Jack Belsize's misadventures, of the first part of which we had only heard in London, and whither he returned presently to be reconciled to his father after his elder brother's death. Thus, my Lord Q's secret history came into my possession. Let us hope for the public's future delectation and the chronicler's private advantage. And many a night until daylight did appear, as poor Clive stamped his chamber o'er my own, pouring his story out to me, his griefs and raptures, recalling, in his wild young way, recollection of Ethel's sayings and doings, uttering descriptions of her beauty, and raging against the cruelty which he exhibited towards him.
As soon as the new confidant heard the name of the young lover's charmer, To do Mr. Pendennis justice, he endeavored to fling as much cold water upon Clive's flame as a small private engine could be brought to pour in such a conflagration. Miss Newcomb, my dear Clive, says the confidant, do you know what you are aspiring to? For the last three months, Miss Newcomb has been the greatest lioness in London, the reigning beauty winning the horse. The first favorite out of the whole Belgravian harem. No young woman of this year has come near her. Those of past seasons she has distanced and utterly put to shame. Miss Blackcap, Lady Blanche Blackcap's daughter, was, as perhaps you were not aware, considered by her mama the great beauty of last season.
And it was considered rather shabby of the young Marquis, a Ferentosh, to leave town without offering to change Ms. Blackap's name. Heaven bless you. This year Ferentosh will not look at Ms. Blackap. He finds people at home when, ha, I see you wince, my suffering innocent, when he calls in Queen Street. Yes, and Lady Q, who is one of the cleverest women in England, will listen for hours to Lord Farentosh's conversation, than whom the rotten row of Hyatt Park cannot show a greater booby. Miss Blackcap may retire, like Jeff's ass daughter, for all Farentosh will relieve her. Then, my dear fellow, there were, as possibly you do not know, Lady Hemingill. And Lady Isolt. Lady Rakshaw's lovely twins.
Whose appearance created such a sensation at Lady Ho-Boys first. Was it her first, or was it her second? Yes, it was her second breakfast. Whom weren't they going to marry? Crackthorpe, as mad they said, about both. Bustington. Sir John Fosby. The young baronet with the immense northern property. The Bishop of Windsor was actually said to be smitten with one of them, but did not like to offer, as her present M-Y, like QU-N, EL-Z-B-TH of gracious memory, is said to object to bishops, as bishops marrying. Where is Bustington? Where is Crackthorpe? Where is Fabsby? The young baronet of the North. My dear fellow, when those two girls come into a room now, they make no more sensation than you or I.
Miss Newcomb has carried their admirers away from them. Fomsby has actually, it is said, proposed for her. And the real reason for that affair between Lord Bustington and Captain Crackthorpe of the Royal Horse Guards Green was a speech of Bustington's, hinting that Miss Newcomb had not behaved well in throwing Lord Q over. Don't you know what old lady Q will do with this girl, Clive? She will marry Miss Newcomb to the best man, If a richer and better party than Lord Farentosh presents himself, then it will be Farentosh's turn to find that Lady Q is not at home. Is there any young man in the peerage unmarried and richer than Farentosh? I forget. Why does not someone publish a list of the young male nobility and baronetage?
Their names, weights, and probable fortunes. I don't mean for the matrons of Mayfair. They have the list by heart and study it in secret, but for young men in the world, so that they may know what their chances are, and who naturally has the pull over them. Let me see. There is young Lord Gaunt, who will have a great fortune, and is desirable because you know his father is locked up. But he is only ten years old. No, They can scarcely bring him forward as Farentoche's rival. You look astonished, my poor boy. You think it is wicked in me to talk in this brutal way about bargain and sale, and say that your heart's darling is, at this minute, being paced up and down the Mayfair market to be taken away by the best bidder?
Can you count purses with Sultan Farentoche? Can you compete even with Sir John Forbsby of the North? What I say is wicked and worldly, is it? So it is. But it is true. As true as Tattersall's. As true as Circassia or Virginia. Don't you know that the Circassian girls are proud of their bringing up, and take rank according to the prices which they fetch? And you go and buy yourself some new clothes, and a fifty-pound horse, and put a penny rose in your buttonhole, and ride past her window, and think to win this prize? Oh, you idiot! A penny rosebud. Put money in your purse. A fifty-pound hack when a butcher rides as good a one. Put money in your purse. A brave young heart, all courage and love and honor, Put money in thy purse.
Tother coin don't pass in the market, at least where old lady Q has the stall. By these remonstrances, playful though serious, Clive's advisor sought to teach him wisdom about his love affair, and the advice was received as advice upon those occasions usually is. After calling thrice and writing to Miss Newcomb, there came a little note from that young lady saying, Dear Clive, we were so sorry we were out when you called. We shall be at home tomorrow at lunch, when Lady Q hopes you will come, and see yours ever, E.N. Clive went. Poor Clive! He had the satisfaction of shaking Ethel's hand and a finger of Lady Q, of eating a mutton-chop in Ethel's presence, of conversing about the state of art at Rome with Lady Q.
and describing the last works of Gibson and MacDonald. The visit lasted but for half an hour. Not for one minute was Clive allowed to see Ethel alone. At three o'clock, Lady Q's carriage was announced, and our young gentleman rose to take his leave, and had the pleasure of seeing the most noble peer, Marquis of Farentauche, and Earl of Rossmont, descend from his Lordship's program and enter at Lady Q's door, followed by a domestic bearing a small stack of flowers from Covent Gardens. It befell that the good-natured Lady Ferrum had a ball in these days, and meeting Clive in the park, her lord invited him to the entertainment. Mr. Pendennance also had the honor of a card. Accordingly, Clive took me up at Baze's, and we proceeded to the ball together.
The lady of the house, smiling upon all her guests, welcomed with particular kindness her young friend from Rome. Are you related to thee, Miss Newcomb, Lady Anne Newcomb's daughter, her cousin? She will be here tonight. Very likely, Lady Farham did not see Clive wins and blush at this announcement. Her ladyship having to occupy herself with a thousand other people. Clive found a dozen of his Roman friends in the room. Ladies young and middle-aged, plain and handsome, all glad to see his kind face. The house was splendid, the ladies magnificently dressed, the ball beautiful, though it appeared a little dull until that event took place, whereof we treated two pages back. In the allegory of Mr.
Tompkins and Miss Hopkins, and Lady Q and her granddaughter made their appearance. That old woman, who began to look more and more like the wicked fairy of the stories, who is not invited to the princess's christening feast, had this advantage over her likeness, that she was invited everywhere. Though how she, at her age, could fly about to so many parties, unless she was a fairy, no one could say. Behind the fairy, up the marble stairs, came the most noble Farentosh, with that vacuous leer which distinguishes his lordship. Ethel seemed to be carrying the sack of flowers which the Marquis had sent to her. The noble Bustington, Viscount Bustington, I need scarcely tell the reader, is the heir of the House of Plodbury.
The Baronet of the North, the gallant Crackthorpe, the first men in town, in a word, gathered round the young beauty, forming her court, and little Dick Hitchin, who goes everywhere, you may be sure, was near her with a compliment and a smile. It is arrival. The twins had been giving themselves great airs in the room. The poor twins. When Ethel appeared, they sank into shuddering insignificance and had to put up with the conversation and attentions of second-rate men belonging to second-rate clubs in heavy dragoon regiments. One of them actually walked with a dancing barrister. But he was related to a duke, and it was expected the Lord Chancellor would give him something very good. Before he saw Ethel, Clive vowed he was aware of her.
Indeed, had not Lady Ferrum told him Miss Newcomb was coming? Ethel, on the contrary, not expecting him, or not having the presence of love, exhibited signs of surprise when she beheld him, her eyebrows arching. Her eyes darting looks of pleasure. When Grandmama happened to be in another room, she beckoned Clive to her, dismissing Crackthorpe and Flomsby, Farentosh and Bustington, the amorous youth who around her bowed and summoning Mr. Clive to an audience with the air of a young princess. And so she was a princess, and this the region of her special dominion. The wittiest and handsomest, she deserved to reign in such a place, by right of merit and by general election. Clive felt her superiority, and his own shortcomings.
He came up to her as to a superior person. Perhaps she was not sorry to let him see how she ordered away grandees and splendid Bustingtons, informing them, with a superb manner, that she wished to speak to her cousin. That handsome young man with the light mustache, yonder. Do you know many people? This is your first appearance in society? Shall I introduce you to some nice girls to dance with? What very pretty buttons! Is that what you wanted to say, asked Clive, rather bewildered. What does one say at a ball? One talks conversations suited to the place. If I were to say to Captain Crackthorpe, What pretty buttons! He would be delighted. But you! You have a soul above buttons, I suppose. Being, as you say, a stranger in this sort of society, you see I am not accustomed to, to the exceeding brilliancy of its conversations, said Clive.
What? You want to go away, and we haven't seen each other for near a year, cries Ethel, in quite a natural voice. Sir John Fogsby, I'm very sorry, but do let me off this stance. I have just met my cousin, whom I have not seen for a whole year, and I want to talk to him. It was not my fault that you did not see me sooner. I wrote to you that I only got your letter a month ago. You never answered the second I wrote you from Rome. Your letter lay there at the post ever so long, and was forwarded to me at Naples." Where?" asked Ethel. I saw Lord Q there. Ethel was smiling with all her might, and kissing her hand to the twins, who passed at that moment with their mama. Oh, indeed, you saw. How do you do, Lord Q?
And, after seeing him, I came over to England, said Clive. Ethel looked at him gravely. What am I to understand by that, Clive? You came over because it was very hot at Naples, and because you wanted to see your friends here, nespa? How glad Mama was to see you. You know she loves you as if you were her own son. What? As much as that angel Barnes, cries Clive bitterly, impossible. Ethel looked once more. Her present mood and desire was to treat Clive as a chit, as a young fellow without consequence, a thirteenth younger brother. But in his looks and behavior, there was that which seemed to say not too many liberties were to be taken with him. Why weren't you here a month sooner, and you might have seen the marriage?
It was a very pretty thing. Everybody was there. Clara, and so did Barnes really, looked quite handsome. It must have been beautiful, continued Clive. Quite a touching sight, I am sure. Poor Charles Belsize could not be present because his brother was dead. And—And what else, pray, Mr. Newcomb, cries Miss, in great wrath, her pink nostrils beginning to quiver. I did not think, really, that when we met after so many months I was to be insulted, yes, insulted by the mention of that name. I most humbly ask pardon, said Clive with a grave bow. Heaven forbid that I should wound your sensibility, Ethel. It is, as you say, my first appearance in society. I talk about things of persons that I should not mention.
I should talk about buttons, should I? Which you were good enough to tell me was the proper subject of conversation. Mayn't I even speak of connections of the family? Mr. Belsize, through his marriage, has the honor of being connected with you, and even I, in a remote degree, may boast of a sort of an ever so distant cousinship with him. What an honor for me. Pray, What is the meaning of all this, cries Miss Ethel, surprised and perhaps alarmed. Indeed, Clive scarcely knew. He had been chafing all the while he talked with her, smothering anger as he saw the young men round about her, revolting against himself with the very humility of his obedience, and angry at the eagerness of delight with which he had come at her call.
The meaning is, Ethel, he broke out, seizing the opportunity, that when a man comes a thousand miles to see you and shake your hand, you should give him a little more cordially than you choose to do to me. That when a kinsman knocks at your door, time after time, you should try and admit him. "'And that when you meet him, you should treat him like an old friend, not as you treated me, when my lady Q vouchsays to give me admittance. Not as you treat these fools that are fribbling around about you,' cries Mr. Clive, in a great rage, folding his arms, and glaring round on a number of the most innocent young swells. And he continued looking, as if he would like to knock a dozen of their heads together.
"'Am I keeping Miss Newcomb's admirers from her?' "'That is not for me to say,' she said quite gently. He was, but to see him angry did not displease Miss Newcomb. "'That young man who came to you just now,' Clive went on. "'That Sir John.' "'Are you angry with me because I sent him away?' said Ethel, putting out a hand. "'Hark! There is the music. Take me in and waltz with me.' "'Don't you know it is not my door at which you knocked?' she said, looking up into his face as simply and kindly as of old. She whirled round the dancing-room with him in triumph, the other beauties dwindling before her. She looked more and more beautiful with each rapid move of the waltz, her color heightening and her eyes seeming to brighten.
Not till the music stopped did she sink down on a seat, panting and smiling radiant. As many, many hundred years ago, I remember to have seen Taglione after a conquering Pasur. She nodded a thank you to Clive. It seemed that there was a perfect reconciliation. Lady Q came in just at the end of the dance, scowling when she beheld Ethel's partner. But in reply to her remonstrances, Ethel shrugged her fair shoulders with a look which seemed to say, Je le veux, gave an arm to her grandmother, and walked off, saucily protecting her. Clive's friend had been looking on observingly and curiously as the scene between them had taken place, and at the dance with which the reconciliation had been celebrated.
I must tell you, That this arch young creature had formed the object of my observation for some months past, and that I watched her as I have watched a beautiful panther at the zoological gardens, so bright of eye, so sleek of coat, so slim in form, so sweet and agile in her spring. A more brilliant young coquette than Miss Newcomb, in her second season, these eyes never looked upon That is the truth. In her first year, being engaged to Lord Q, she was perhaps a little more reserved and quiet. Besides, her mother went out with her that first season, to whom Miss Newcomb, except for a little occasional flightiness, was invariably obedient and ready to come to call. But when Lady Q appeared as her Duana, the girl's delight seemed to be to plague the old lady.
And she would dance with the very youngest sons merely to put Grandmama in a passion. In this way, poor young Copley, who has 200 a year of allowance, besides 80 and an annual rise of five in the treasury, actually thought that Ethel was in love with him and consulted with the young man in his room in Downing Street, whether 280 a year, with five pound more next year. Would be enough for them to keep house on. Young Tandy at the temple, Lord Skibberine's younger son, who sat in the house for some time on the Irish Catholic side, was also deeply smitten, and many a night in our walks home from the parties at the other end of the town would entertain me with this admiration and passion for her.
"'If you have such a passion for her, why not propose?' it was asked of Mr. Tandy. "'Propose? Propose to a Russian archdodice?' cries young Tandy. "'She's beautiful. She's delightful. She's witty. I have never seen anything like her eyes. They send me wild, wild,' says Tandy, slapping his waistcoat under Temple Bar. But a more audacious little flirt never existed since the days of Cleopatra. With this opinion likewise in my mind, I have been looking on during Clive's proceedings with Miss Ethel. Not, I say, without admiration of the young lady who was leading him such a dance. The waltz over, I congratulated him on his own performance. His continental practice had greatly improved him. And as for your partner, it is delightful to see her, I went on.
I always like to be by when Miss Newcomb dances. I had sooner see her than anybody since Tag Leone. Look at her now, with her neck up and her little foot out, just as she is preparing to start. Happy Lord Bustington. You were angry with her because she cut you, Grouse Clive. You know you said she cut you. Or forgot you, and your vanity's wounded. That is why you are so satirical. How can Miss Newcomb remember all the men who have resented to her, says the other. Last year she talked to me because she wanted to know about you. This year she doesn't talk, because I suppose she doesn't want to know about you anymore. Hang it. Don't, Penn, cries Clive. As a schoolboy cries out to another not to hit him.
She does not pretend to observe, and is in full conversation with the amiable Bustington. Delicious interchange of noble thoughts. But she is observing us talking, and knows that we are talking about her. If ever you marry her, Clive, which is absurd, I shall lose you for a friend. You will infallibly tell her what I think of her. And she will order you to give me up. Clive had gone off, and a brown study as his interlocutor continued. Yes, she is a flirt. She can't help her nature. She tries to vanquish everyone who comes near her. She is a little out of breath from waltzing, and so she pretends to be listening to poor Bustington, who is out of breath too, but puffs out his best in order to make himself agreeable.
With what a pretty air she appears to listen. Her eyes actually seemed to brighten. What, says Clive with the start? I could not comprehend the meaning of the start, nor did I care much to know, supposing that the young man was waking up from some lover's reverie, and the evening sped away, Clive not quitting the ball until Miss Newcomb and the Countess of Q had departed. No further communication appeared to take place between the cousins that evening. I think it was Captain Crackthorpe who gave the young lady an arm into her carriage. Sir John Fabsby, having the happiness to conduct the old countess, and carrying the pink bag for the shawls, wrappers, etc., on which her ladyship's coronet and initials are emblazoned.
Clive may have made a movement as to step forward. But a single finger for Miss Newcomb warned him back. Clive and his two friends in Lamb Court had made an engagement for the next Saturday to dine at Greenwich. But on the morning of that day, there came a note from him to say that he thought of going down to see his aunt, Miss Honeyman, and begged to recall his promise to us. Saturday is a holiday with gentlemen of our profession. We had invited F. Bayham, Esquire. And promised ourselves a merry evening, and were unwilling to balk ourselves of the pleasure on account of the absence of our young Roman. So we three went to London Bridge Station at an early hour, proposing to breathe the fresh air of Greenwich Park before dinner.
And, at London Bridge, by the most singular coincidence, Lady Q's carriage drove up to the Brighton entrance, and Miss Ethel and her maid stepped out at the Brogham. When Miss Newcomb and her maid entered the Brighton Station, did Mr. Clive, by another singular coincidence, happen also to be there? What more natural and dutiful than that he should go and see his aunt, Miss Honeyman? What more proper than that Miss Ethel should pass this Saturday and Sunday with her sick father, and take a couple of wholesome nights' rest after those five weary past evenings? For each of which, we may reckon a couple of soirees and a ball. And that relation should travel together, the young lady being protected by her femme de chambre, that surely, as everyone must allow, was perfectly right and proper.
That a biographer should profess to know everything which passes, even in a confidential talk in a first-class carriage between two lovers, seems perfectly absurd. Not that grave historians do not pretend to the same wonderful degree of knowledge. Reporting meetings are the most occult of conspirators. Private interviews between monarchs and their ministers, even the secret thoughts and motives of those personages, which possibly the persons themselves did not know. All for which the present writer will pledge his known character for veracity. is that, on a certain day, certain parties had a conversation of which the upshot was so-and-so. He guesses, of course, at a great deal of what took place, knowing the characters and being informed at some time of their meeting.
You do not suppose that I bribed the femme de chambre, or that those two city gents, who stayed in the same carriage with our young friends and could not hear a word they said, Reported their talk to me. If Clive and Ethel had had a coop to themselves, I would yet boldly tell what took place. But the coop was taken by other three young city gents who smoked the whole way. Well then, the bonnet begins close up to the hat. Tell me, sir. Is it true that you were so very much a prey of the young freemans at Rome, and that afterwards you were so wonderfully attentive to the third Miss Balliol? Did you draw her portrait? You know you drew her portrait. You painters always pretend to admire girls with auburn hair, because Titian and Raphael painted it.
Has the faunerina red hair? Why, we are at Croydon, I declare. "'The fauna rena,' the hat replies to the bonnet. "'If that picture at the Borghese Palace be an original, or a likeness of her, it is not a handsome woman, with vulgar eyes and mouth, and altogether a most mahogany-coloured person. She is so plain, in fact. I think that very likely it is the real woman, for it is with their own fancies that men fall in love.' Or rather, every woman is handsome to the lover. You know how old Helen must have been. I don't know any such thing or anything about her. Who was Helen, asked the bonnet, and indeed she did not know. It's a long story, and such an old scandal now, that there is no use in repeating it, says Clive.
"'You only talk about Helen because you wish to turn away the conversation from Miss Freeman,' cries the young lady. "'From Miss Balliol, I mean.' "'We will talk about whichever you please. Which shall we begin to pull to pieces,' says Clive. "'You see, to be in this carriage, to be actually with her, to be looking into those wonderful lucid eyes, to see her sweet-mouthed tumbling, And hear her sweet voice ringing with its delicious laughter. To have that hour and a half his own, in spite of all the world-dragons' grandmother's conveyances. The future made the young fellow so happy, filled his whole frame and spirit with a delight so keen that no wonder he was gay, and brisk, and lively. And so you knew of my goings-on, he asked.
All me. They were at Raygate by this time. There was Gatton Park flying before them on the wings of the wind. I know of a number of things," says the bonnet, nodding with ambrosial curls. And you would not answer the second letter I wrote to you? We were in a great perplexity. One cannot be always answering young gentlemen's letters. I had considerable doubt about answering a note I got from Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, said the Lady Chapeau. "'No, Clive, we must not write to one another,' she continued more gravely, "'or only very, very seldom. Nay, my meeting you here to-day is by the merest chance, I am sure.' "'For when I mentioned at Lady Farham's the other evening that I was going to see Papa at Brighton today, I never for one moment thought of seeing you in the train.
But as you are here, it can't be helped, and I may as well tell you that there are obstacles.' "'What, other obstacles?' Clive gasped out. "'Nonsense, you silly boy. No other obstacles but those which have always existed.' And must. When we parted, that is, when you left us at Baden, you knew it was for the best. You had your profession to follow, and could not go on idling about, about a family of sick people and children. Every man has his profession, and you yours, as you would have it. We are so nearly allied that we may, we may like each other like brother and sister almost. I don't know what Barnes would say if he heard me. Wherever you and your father are, how can I ever think of you, but...
but you know how? I always shall, always. There are certain feelings we have which I hope never can change, though, if you please, about them I intend never to speak any more. Neither you nor I can alter our conditions, but must make the best of them. "'You shall be a fine, clever painter, and I, who knows what will happen to me. I know what is going to happen to-day. I am going to see Papa and Mama, and be as happy as I can till Monday morning.' "'I know what I wish would happen now,' said Clive. They were going screaming through a tunnel. "'What?' said the bonnet in the darkness, and the engine was roaring so loudly that he was obliged to put his head quite close to say, "'I wish the tunnel would fall in and close upon us, or that we might travel on for ever and ever.' Here there was a great jar at the carriage, and the ladies made, and I think Miss Ethel gave a shriek.
The lamp above was so dim that the carriage was almost totally dark. No wonder the lady's maid was frightened, but the daylight came streaming in, and all poor Clive's wishes of rolling and rolling on forever were put an end to by the implacable sun in a minute. Ah, why was it the quick train? Suppose it had been the parliamentary train. Even that, too, would have come to an end. They came and said, Tickets, please, and Clive held out the three of their party. His, And Ethel's and her maids. I think for such a ride as that, he was right to give up Greenwich. Mr. Kuhn was in waiting with a carriage for Miss Ethel. She shook hands with Clive, returning his pressure. I may come and see you, he said.
You may come and see Mama. Yes. And where are you staying? Bless my soul. They were staying at Miss Honeyman's. Clive burst into a laugh. Why? He was going there, too. Of course Aunt Honeyman had no room for him, her house being quite full with the other Newcombs. It was a most curious coincidence, their meeting, but altogether Lady Anne thought it was best to say nothing about the circumstance to Grandmama. I myself am puzzled to say which would have been the better course to pursue under the circumstances. There were so many courses open, as they had gone so far, should they go on farther together? Suppose they were going to the same house at Brighton. Oughtn't they to have gone in the same carriage, with Kuhn and the maid, of course?
Suppose they met by chance at the station. Ought they to have traveled in separate carriages? I ask any gentleman, and father of a family, when he was immensely smitten with his present wife, Mrs. Brown, If he had met her traveling with her maid in the mail when there was a vacant place, what would he himself have done?
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42 42 - Chapter 42: Injured Innocence 38:51
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 42 Injured Innocence From Clive Newcomb Esq. To Lieutenant Colonel Newcomb, C.B., Brighton, June 12th, 18-blank. My dearest father, as the weather was growing very hot at Naples, and you wished I should come to England to see Mr. Binney, I came accordingly, and have been here three weeks, and write to you from Aunt Honeyman's Parlor at Brighton, where you ate your last dinner before embarking for India. I found your splendid remittance calling in Fogg Court, and have invested a part of the sum in a good horse to ride, upon which I take my diversion with other young dandies in the park. Fleurac is in England, but he has no need of your kindness.
Only think, he is Prince de Montcontour now. The second title of the Duke de Vries family. And Monsieur Le Comte de Florac is Duke D'Evry in consequence of the demise of t'other old gentleman. I believe the late Duke's wife shortened his life. Oh, what a woman! She caused a duel between Lord Q and a Frenchman, which has, in its turn, occasioned all sorts of evil and division in families, as you shall hear. In the first place, in consequence of the duel and of incompatibility of temper, the match between Q and E.N. has been broken off. I met Lord Q at Naples with his mother and brother. Nice, quiet people as you would like them. Q's wound and subsequent illness have altered him a good deal. He has become much more serious than he used to be.
Not ludicrously so at all, but he says he thinks his past life has been useless and even criminal, and he wishes to change it. He has sold his horses and sown his wild oats. He has turned quite a sober, quiet gentleman. At our meeting, he told me of what had happened between him and Ethel, of whom he spoke most kindly and generously. But avowing his opinion that they never could have been happy in married life. And now I think my dear old father will see that there may be another reason, besides my desire to see Mr. Benny, which has brought me tumbling back to England again. If need be, to speak. I never shall have, I hope, any secrets from you. I have not said much about one which has given me the deuces disquiet for ten months past.
Well, when we were at Bodden in September last, and E and I wrote those letters in common to you, I dare say you can fancy what my feelings might have been towards such a beautiful young creature, who has a hundred faults, for which I love her just as much as for the good that is in her. I became dreadfully smitten indeed, and knowing that she was engaged to Lord Q, I did as you told me you did once when the enemy was too strong for you. I ran away. I had a bad time of it for two or three months. At Rome, however, I began to take matters more easily. My naturally fine appetite returned, and at the end of the season I found myself uncommonly happy in the society of the Miss Ballioles and the Miss Freemans.
But when Q told me at Naples of what had happened, there was straightway a fresh eruption in my heart, and I was full enough to come almost without sleep to London in order to catch a glimpse of the bright eyes of E.N. She is now in this very house upstairs with one aunt, whilst the other lets lodgings to her. I have seen her, but very seldom indeed, since I came to London, where Sir Brian and Lady Anne do not pass the season, and Ethel goes about to a dozen parties every week with old Lady Q, who neither loves you nor me. Hearing Ease say she was coming down to her parents at Brighton, I made so bold as to waylay her at the train, though I didn't tell her that I passed three hours in the waiting room.
And we made the journey together, and she was very kind and beautiful. And though I suppose I might just as well ask the royal princess to have me, I can't help hoping and longing and hankering after her. And Aunt Honeyman must have found out that I am fond of her, for the old lady has received me with a scolding. Uncle Charles seems to be in very good condition again. I saw him in full clerical feather at Madame de Montcontour's, a good-natured body who drops her H's, though Florac is not aware of their absence. Pendennis and Warrington, I know, would send you their regards. Penn is conceited, but much kinder in reality than he has the air of being. Fred Bayham is doing well, and prospering in his mysterious way.
Mr. Benny is not looking at all well, and Mrs. Mack, well, as I know you never attack a lady behind her lovely back. I won't say a word of Mrs. Mack. But she has taken possession of Uncle James, and seems to me to weigh upon him somehow. Rosie is as pretty and good-natured as ever, and has learned two new songs. But you see, with my sentiments in another quarter, I feel as if it were guilty and awkward in company of Rosie and her mama. They have become the very greatest friends with Briarstone Square. And Mrs. Mack is always citing Aunt Hobson as the most superior of women, in which opinion I dare say, Aunt Hobson concurs. Goodbye, my dearest father. My sheet is full. I wish I could put my arm in yours and pace up and down the pier with you, and tell you more and more.
But you know enough now, and that I am your affectionate son always. C.N. In fact, when Mr. Clive appeared at Stain Gardens, stepping out of the fly and handing Miss Ethel thence, Miss Honeyman, of course, was very glad to see her nephew, and saluted him with a little embrace to show her sense of pleasure at his visit. But the next day being Sunday, when Clive, with the most engaging smile on his countenance, walked over to breakfast from his hotel, Miss Honeyman would scarcely speak to him during the meal, looked out at him very haughtily from under her Sunday cap, and received his stories about Italy with, oh, ah, indeed, in a very unkind manner. And when breakfast was over, and she had done washing her aged gins, she fluttered up to Clive with such an agitation of plumage, redness of craw, and anger of manner, as a maternal hen shows if she has reason to think you menace her chickens.
She fluttered up to Clive, I say, and cried out, Not in this house, Clive! Not in this house! I beg you to understand that! Clive, looking amazed, said, Certainly not, ma'am. I never did do it in the house, as I know you don't like it. I was going into the square. The young man meaning that he was about to smoke, and conjecturing that his aunt's anger applied to that practice. You know very well what I mean, sir. Don't try to turn me off in that hidey-tidey way. My dinner to-day is at half-past one. You can dine or not as you like," and the old lady flounced out of the room. Poor Clive stood rolling his cigar in sad perplexity of spirit until Mrs. Honeyman's servant, Hannah, entered, who, for her part, grinned and looked particularly sly.
"'In the name of goodness, Hannah, what is the row about?' cries Mr. Clive. What is my aunt scolding at? What are you grinning at, you old Cheshire Cat? Get along, Mr. Clive, says Hannah, patting the cloth. Get along. Why, get along, and where am I to get along to? Did he do, really now, Master Clive? cries Mrs. Honeyman's attendant, grinning with the utmost good humor. Well, She'd be as pretty a young lady as ever I saw, and as I told my missus, Miss Martha says I, there's a pair on em. Though missus was mortal angry to be sure, she never could bear it. Bear what, you old goose, cries Clive, who by these playful names had been wont to designate Hannah these twenty years past? "'A young gentleman and a young lady, a kissin' of each other in the railway coach,' says Hannah, jerking up her finger to the ceiling, as much as to say, "'There she is.
"'Lar she be a pretty young creature. "'That she be.' And so I told Miss Martha." Thus differently had the news which had come to them on the previous night affected the old lady and her maid. The news was, That Miss Newcomb's maid, a giddy thing from the county, who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue, had announced with giggling delight to Lady Anne's maid, who was taking tea with Mrs. Hicks, that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel a kiss in the tunnel, and she supposed it was a match. This intelligence Hannah Hicks took to her mistress, Of whose angry behavior took Clive the next morning, you may now understand the cause. Clive did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage. He swore that he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel as of embracing Queen Elizabeth.
He was shocked to think of his cousin walking above. Fancy free and maiden meditation, whilst this conversation regarding her was carried on below. How could he face her, or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognizance of this naughty calumny? Of course Hannah had contradicted it. Of course I have done no such indeed, replied Master Clive's old friend. Of course I have set him down a bit, for when little Trimmer said it, And she supposed it was all settled between you, seeing at how it had been going on in foreign parts last year. Mrs. Pincott says, hold your silly tongue, Trimmer, she says. Miss Ethel, marry a painter. Indeed, Trimmer, says she. While she has refused to be a countess, she says, and can be a marchioness any day, and will be a marchioness.
"'Marily a painter, indeed,' Mrs. Pincott says. "'Trimmer, I'm surprised at your impotence.' "'So, my dear, I got angry at that,' Clive's champion continued. "'And says I, if my young master ain't good enough for any young lady in this world,' says I, "'I'd like you to show her to me. And if his dear father, the colonel,' says I, "'aint as good as your old gentleman upstairs,' says I, Who has gruel and dines upon doctor's stuff. The Mrs. Pincott, says I. My name isn't what it is, says I. Those were my very words, Master Clive, my dear. And then Mrs. Pincott says, Mrs. Hicks, she says. You don't understand society, she says. You don't understand society. Hee hee. And the country lady, with considerable humor, gave an invitation of the town lady's manner.
At this juncture, Miss Honeyman re-entered the parlor, arrayed in her Sunday bonnet, her stiff and spotless collar, her cashmere shawl, an agra brooch, and carrying her Bible and prayer book, each stitched in its neat cover of brown silk. "'Don't stay chattering there, you idle woman,' she cried to her attendant with extreme asperity. "'And you, sir, if you wish to smoke your cigar, you had best walk down to the cliff where the cockneys are,' she added, glowering at Clive. "'Now I understand it all,' Clive said, trying to deprecate her anger. "'My dear good aunt, it's a most absurd mistake, upon my honor. Miss Ethel is as innocent as you are. Innocent or not, this house is not intended for assignations, Clive.
As long as Sir Brian Newcomb Lodge is here, you will be pleased to keep away from it, sir. And though I don't approve of Sunday traveling, I think the very best thing you can do is to put yourself in the train and go back to London. And now, young people who read my moral pages, you will see how highly imprudent it is to sit with your cousins in railway carriages, and how, though you may not mean the slightest harm in the world, a great deal may be attributed to you, and how, when you think you are managing your little absurd love affairs ever so quietly, James and Betsy in the servants' hall. I very likely talking about them, and you are putting yourself in the power of those menials. If the perusal of these lines has rendered one single young couple uncomfortable, surely my amiable end is answered, and I have written not altogether in vain.
Clive was going away, innocent though he was, it quivering under his aunt's reproof. And so put out of continents that he had not even thought of lighting the great cigar, which he stuck into his foolish mouth, when a shout of, Clive, Clive, from half a dozen little voices roused him. And presently, as many little Newcombs came toddling down the stairs, and this one clung round his knees, and that at the skirts of his coat. And another took his hand and said, He must come and walk with them on the beach. So away went Clive to walk with his cousins, and then to see his old friend, Miss Cann, with whom and the elder children he walked to church, and issuing thence greeted Lady Anne and Ethel, who had also attended the service in the most natural way in the world.
While engaged in talking with these, Miss Honeyman came out of the sacred edifice, crisp and stately in the famous agri-broach and cashmere shawls. The good-natured Lady Anne had a smile and a kind word for her, as for everybody. Clive went up to his maternal aunt to offer his arm. "'You must give him up to us for dinner, Miss Honeyman, if you please to be so very kind.' He was so good-natured in escorting Ethel down, Lady Anne said. "'Hm, my lady,' says Miss Honeyman, perking her head up in her collar. Clive did not know whether to laugh or not, but a fine blush illuminated his countenance. As for Ethel, she was, and looked perfectly unconscious. So—' Rustling in her stiff black silk, Martha Honeyman walked with her nephew, silent by the shore of the much-sounding sea.
The idea of courtship, of osculatory processes, of marrying and giving in marriage, made this elderly virgin chafe and fume. She never having, at any period of her life, indulged in any such ideas or practices, and being angry against them. As childless wives will sometimes be angry and testy against matrons with their proddle about their nurseries. Now Miss Cann was a different sort of spinster, and loved a bit of sentiment with all her heart from which I am led to conclude. But pray, is this the history of Miss Cann or of the Newcombs? All these Newcombs then entered into Miss Honeyman's house, where a number of little knives and forks were laid for them. Ethel was cold and thoughtful. Lady Anne was perfectly good-natured, as her wont was.
Sir Brian came in on the arm of his valet presently, wearing that look of extra neatness which invalids have, who have just been shaved and combed, and made ready by their attendants to receive company. He was voluble, though there was a perceptible change in his voice. He talked chiefly of manners which had recurred forty years ago, and especially of Clive's own father, when he was a boy, in a manner which interested the young man and Ethel. He threw me down in a chaise, sad chap, always reading Orme's history of India, wanted to marry Frenchwoman. He wondered Mrs. Newcomb didn't leave Tom anything, upon my word quite surprise. The events of today, the House of Commons, the city, had little interest for him.
All the children went up and shook him by the hand, with awe in their looks, and he patted their yellow heads vacantly and kindly. He asked Clive, several times, where he had been, and said he himself had had a slight tack. He was slight, with getting well every day. Strong as a horse. Go back to Parliament directly. And then he became a little peevish with Parker, his man, about his broth. The man retired, and came back presently, with profound bows and gravity, to tell Sir Brian dinner was ready. And he went away quite briskly at this news, giving a couple of fingers to Clive before he disappeared into the upper apartments. Good-natured Lady Anne was as easy about this as about the other events of this world.
In later days, with what a strange feeling we remember that last night we have of the old friend, that nod of farewell. And shake of the hand, that last look of the face and figure as the door closes on him, or the coach drives away. So the roast mutton was ready, and all the children dined very heartily. The infantile meal had not been long concluded when servants announced the Marquis of Farentosh, and that nobleman made his appearance to pay his respects to Miss Nocombe and Lady Anne. He brought the very last news of the very last party in London, where, really, upon my honor now, it was quite a stupid party, because Miss Newcomb wasn't there. It was now, really. Miss Newcomb remarked, if he said so upon his honor, of course she was satisfied.
As you weren't there, the young nobleman continued, the Miss Rakstors came out quite strong. Really, they did now, upon my honor. It was quite a quiet thing. Lady Maryborough hadn't even got a new gown on. Lady Anne, you shirk London Society this year, and we miss you. We expected you to give us two or three things this season. We did now, really. I said to Toughent, only yesterday, why has not Lady Anne Newcomb given anything? You know Toughent. They say he's a clever fellow, and that. But he's a low little beast, and I hate him," Lady Anne said. Sir Brian's bad state of health prevented her from going out this season, or receiving at home. It don't prevent your mother from going out, though," continued my lord.
Upon my honor, I think unless she got two or three things every night, I think she'd die. Lady's queues, like, one of those horses, you know, that unless they go, they drop. "'Thank you for my mother,' said Lady Anne. "'She is upon my honor. Last night I know she was at ever so many places. She dined at the Bloxham's, for I was there. Then she said she was going to sit with old Mrs. Crackthorpe, who has broke her collarbone.' That Crackthorpe and the lifeguards, her grandson, is a brute, and I hope she won't leave him a shillin'. And then she came on to Lady Hawkstone's, where I heard her say she had been at the—at the Flowerdales, too. People begin to go to those Flowerdales. Hanged if I know where they won't go next.
Cotton-spinner, wasn't he? So were we, my lord, said Miss Newcomb. "'Oh, yes, I forgot. But you're of an old family, very old family.' "'We can't help it,' said Miss Ethel, archly. Indeed, she thought she was. "'Do you believe in the barber-surgeon?' asked Clive. And my lord looked at him with a noble curiosity, as much as to say, "'Who the deuce was the barber-surgeon, and who the devil are you?' Why should we disown our family, Miss Ethel said simply. In those early days, I suppose people did. Did all sorts of things, and it was not considered at all out of the way to be surgeon to William the Conqueror. Edward the Confessor interposed Clive, and it must be true, because I have seen a picture of the barber-surgeon, a friend of mine.
McCullough did the picture, and I dare say it is for sale still. Lady Anne said she should be delighted to see it. Lord Farentosh remembered that the McCollop had the moor next to his in Argyleshire, but did not choose to commit himself with the stranger, and preferred looking at his own handsome face and admiring it in the glass until the last speaker had concluded his remarks. As Clive did not offer any further conversation, but went back to a table, where he began to draw the barber-surgeon, Lord Farentosh resumed the delightful talk. "'What infernal bad glasses these are in these Brighton lodging-houses! They make a man look green. Really, they do. And there's nothing green in me, is there, Lady Anne?' "'But you look very unwell, Lord Farentosh.
Indeed, you do.' Miss Newcomb said gravely. I think late hours and smoking and going to that horrid platts, where I dare say you go. Go, don't I? But don't call it horrid, really now. Don't call it horrid, cried the noble Marquis. Well, something has made you look far from well. You know how very well Lord Veritage used to look, Mama, and to see him now. in only his second season. Oh, it is melancholy. God bless my soul, Miss Newcomb. What do you mean? I think I look pretty well. And the noble youth passed his hand through his hair. It is a hard life, I know, that tearing about night after night, and sitting up till ever so much o'clock, and then all these races, you know, coming one after another.
It's enough to knock up any fellow. "'I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss Newcomb. I'll go down to Codlington to my mother. I will, upon my honor, and lie quiet all July. And then I'll go to Scotland, and you shall see whether I don't look better next season.' "'Do, Lord Farentosh,' said Ethel, greatly amused, as much, perhaps, at the young Marquis as at her cousin Clive, who sat whilst the other was speaking. Fuming with rage at his table. What are you doing, Clive? she asks. I was trying to draw. Lord knows who? Lord Newcomb, who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth, said the artist, and the girl ran to look at the picture. Why, you have made him look like Punch, cries the young lady. It's a shame caricaturing one's own flush in blood, isn't it?
asked Clive, gravely. "'What a droll funny picture,' exclaims Lady Anne. "'Isn't it capital, Lord Farentosh?' "'I dare say. I confess I don't understand that sort of thing,' says his lordship. "'Don't, upon my honor. There's Odo Carton, always making those caricatures. I don't understand him. You'll come up to town tomorrow, won't you? And you're going to Lady Ham's, and to him and him's, ain't you?' The names of these aristocratic places of resort were quite inaudible. You mustn't let Miss Blackcap have it all her own way, you know. That you mustn't. She won't have it all her own way, says Miss Ethel. Lord Farintosh, will you do me a favor? Lady Innershawn is your aunt? Of course she is my aunt.
Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on Tuesday for my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcomb? Clive, please be introduced to the Marquis of Farentosh. The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios and their wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit to make any sign of recognition. Anything you wish, Miss Newcomb, he said. Delighted, I'm sure. And turning to Clive and... In the army, I suppose. I am an artist, says Clive, turning very red. Oh, really? I didn't know, cries the nobleman. And my lord, bursting out laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation with Miss Ethel on the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with justice. He is making fun of my mustachios, confound him.
I should like to pitch him over into the street. But this was only a kind wish on Mr. Newcomb's part, not followed out by any immediate fulfillment. As the Marquis of Farentosh seemed inclined to prolong his visit, and his company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the latter took his departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think that he should have Ethel to himself at the evening's dinner, when Lady Anne would be occupied about Sir Brian. And would be sure to be putting the children to bed, and, in a word, would give him a quarter of an hour of delightful tete-a-tete with the beautiful Ethel. Clive's disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at length and found Lord Farentosh likewise invited and sprawling in the drawing room.
His hopes of a tete-a-tete were over. Ethel and Lady Anne and my Lord talked, as all people will. About their mutual acquaintance. What parties were coming off? Who was going to marry whom? And so forth. And as the persons about whom they conversed were in their own station of life, and belonged to the fashionable world of which Clive had but a slight knowledge, he chose to fancy that his cousin was giving herself airs, and to feel sulky and uneasy during their dialogue. Miss Newcomb had faults of her own, and was worldly enough as perhaps the reader has begun to perceive, but in this instance no harm sure was to be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt Honeyman's parlor had talked over the affairs of Mr.
Jones and Mr. Brown, Clive would not have been angry. But a young man of spirit not unfrequently mistakes his vanity for independence, and it is certain that nothing is more offensive to us of the middle class than to hear the names of great folks constantly introduced into conversation. So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Martha, who had put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal eye over him. When he actually refused currant and raspberry tart and custard, the chef-d'oeuvre of Miss Honeyman, for which she had seen him absolutely cry in his childhood, the good Martha was alarmed. "'Law, Master Clive,' she said. "'Do ye eat some?' "'Mrs. made it. You know she did.' And she insisted on bringing back the tart to him.
Lady Anne and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy old woman's part. "'Do ye eat some, Clive,' says Ethel, imitating honest Mrs. Hicks, who had left the room. "'It do's a good,' remarked Lord Farentosh. "'Then do ye eat some more,' said Miss Newcomb. On which the young nobleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability that the cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts. "'The cook, dear me, it's not the cook,' cries Miss Ethel. "'Don't you remember the princess in the Arabian Nights, who was such a stunner for tarts, Lord Farentosh?' Lord Farentosh couldn't say that he did. "'Well, I thought not.' But there was a princess in Arabia or China or somewhere who made such delicious tarts and custards that nobody could compare with them.
And there is an old lady in Brighton who has the same wonderful talent. She is the mistress of this house. And she is my aunt at your lordship's service, said Mr. Clive, with great dignity. Upon my honor. Did you make them, Lady Anne? asked my lord. "'The Queen of Hearts made tarts,' cried out Miss Newcomb, rather eagerly, and blushing somewhat. "'My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one,' Clive would go on to say. "'Mr. Honeyman's sister, the preacher, you know. "'Will we go on Sunday?' Miss Ethel interposed. "'The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great importance,' Lady Anne remarked gently. "'Kune, will you have the goodness to take away these things?' When did you hear of Colonel Newcomb Clive?
An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over Lord Parentausher's fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry had been going on. The Uabian princess, the queen of hearts making tarts, Miss Honeyman? Who the deuce were all these? Such may have been his lordship's doubts and queries. Whatever his cogitations were, He did not give utterance to them, but remained in silence for some time, as did the rest of the little party. Clive tried to think he had asserted his independence by showing that he was not ashamed of his old aunt, but the doubt may be whether there was any necessity for presenting her in this company, and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the tart question alone.
Ethel evidently thought so, for she talked and rattled in the most lively manner with Lord Farentosh for the rest of the evening, and scarcely chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Anne was absent with Sir Brian and her children for the most part of the time, and thus Clive had the pleasure of listening to Miss Newcomb uttering all sorts of odd little paradoxes. Firing the while sliced shots at Mr. Clive, and indeed making fun of his friends, exhibiting herself in not the most agreeable light. Her talk only served the more to bewilder Lord Farentosh, who did not understand a tithe of her illusions. For heaven, which had endowed the young Marquis with personal charms, a large estate, an ancient title, and the pride belonging to it, had not supplied his lordship with a great quantity of brains, or a very feeling heart.
Lady Anne came back from the upper regions presently, with rather a grave face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this evening, upon which the young man rose to depart. My lord said he had a most delightful dinner and a most delightful tart, upon his honor, and was the only one of the little company who laughed at his own remark. Miss Ethel's eyes flashed corn at Mr. Clive when that unfortunate subject was introduced again. My lord was going back to London tomorrow. Was Miss Newcomb going back? Wouldn't you like to go back on the train with her? Another unlucky observation. Lady Anne said, it would depend on the status of Brian's health the next morning whether Ethel would return, and both of you gentlemen are too young to be her escort, added the kind lady.
Then she shook hands with Clive, as thinking she had said something too for him. Farentosh, in the meantime, was taking leave of Miss Newcomb. "'Pray, pray,' said his lordship. "'Don't throw me over it, late in-assurance. "'You know I hate balls, and never go to them, "'except when you go. "'I hate dancing. "'I do, upon my honor.' "'Thank you,' said Miss Newcomb, with a curtsy. "'Except with one person, "'only one person, upon my honor. "'I'll remember and get the invitation for your friend. "'And if you would, but try that mare.' "'I give you my honor. I bred her at Cotlington. She's a beauty to look at, and as quiet as a lamb.' "'I don't want a horse like a lamb,' replied the young lady. "'Well, she'll go like blazes now, and over timber she's splendid now.
She is upon my honor.' "'When I come to London, perhaps you may trot her out,' said Miss Ethel, giving him her hand and a fine smile. Clive came up, biting his lips. "'I suppose you don't condescend to write Bertpour any more now,' he said. "'Poor old Bertpour. The children write him now,' said Miss Ethel, giving Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as though to see if her shot had hit. Then she added, "'No, he has not been brought up to town this year. He is at Newcomb, and I like him very much.'" Perhaps she thought the shot had struck too deep. But if Clive was hurt, he did not show his wound. You have had him these four years. Yes, it's four years since my father broke him for you, and you still continue to like him.
What a miracle of constancy! You use him sometimes in the country, when you have no better horse. What a compliment to Burt for! Nonsense, Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign, in her most imperious manner, to stay a moment when Lord Farentosh had departed. But he did not choose to obey this order. Good night, he said. Before I go, I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs. And he was gone, following close upon Lord Farentosh, who I dare say thought, why the deuce can't he shake hands with his aunt up here? And when Clive entered Miss Honeyman's back-parlor, making a bow to the young nobleman, my lord went away more perplexed than ever, and the next day told friends at White's what uncommonly queer people those Newcombs were.
I give you my honor. There was a fellow at Lady Anne's whom they called Clive, who was a painter by trade. His uncle is a preacher. His father is a horse dealer, and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the dinner.
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43 43 - Chapter 43: Returns to some Old Friends 32:26
Chapter 43 Returns to Some Old Friends Burst into my chambers in the temple on the very next morning and confided to me the story which has just been here narrated. When he had concluded it, with many ejaculations regarding the heroine of the tale, I saw her, sir, he added, walking with the children in Miss Cannes as I drove round in the fly to the station and didn't even bow to her. Why did you go round by the cliff? asked Clive's friend. That is not the way from the stained arms to the railroad. Hang it, says Clive, turning very red. I wanted to pass just under her windows, and if I saw her, not to see her, and that's what I did. Why did you walk on the cliff, mused Clive's friend, at that early hour?
Not to meet Lord Farentosh, I should think. He never gets up before twelve. It must have been to see you. Didn't you tell her you were going away in the morning? I tell you what she does with me, continues Mr. Clive. Sometimes she seems to like me, and then she leaves me. Sometimes she's quite kind. Kind she always is. I mean, you know, Penn. You know what I mean. And then up comes the old Countess, or young Marquis, or some fellow with a handle to his name. And she whistles me off to the next convenient opportunity. Women are like that, my ingenuous youth, says Clive's counselor. I won't stand for it. I won't be made a fool of, he continues. She seems to expect everybody to bow to her, and moves to the world with her imperious airs.
Oh, how confoundedly handsome she is with them. I tell you what. I feel inclined to tumble down and feel one of her pretty little feet on my neck and say, there, trample my life out, make a slave of me, let me get a silver collar and mark Ethel on it, and grow through the world with my badge. And a blue ribbon for a footman to hold you by, and a muzzle to wear in the dog days. Bow wow, says Mr. At this noise, Mr. Warrington puts his head in from the neighboring bedchamber, and shows a beard just lathered for shaving. "'We are talking sentiment. Go back till you are wanted,' said Mr. Pendennis. Exit he of the soap-suds. "'Don't make fun of a fellow,' Clive continues, laughing ruefully. "'You see, I must talk about it to somebody.
I shall die if I don't. Sometimes, sir—' I rise up in my might, and I defy her lightning. The sarcastic dodge is the best. I have borrowed that from you, Penn, old boy. That puzzles her. That would beat her if I could but go on with it. But there comes a tone of her sweet voice, a look out of those killing gray eyes, and all my fame is in a thrill and a tremble. When she was engaged to Lord Q, I did battle with the confounded passion, and I ran away from it like an honest man, and the gods rewarded me with ease of mind after a while. But now the thing rages worse than ever. Last night, I give you my honor, I heard every one of the confounded hours told, except the last, when I was dreaming of my father.
And the chambermaid woke me with a hot water jug. Did she scald you? What a cruel chambermaid! I see you have shaven the mustachios off. Farentosh asked me whether I was going in the army, said Clive, and she laughed. I thought I had best dock them. Oh, I would like to cut my head off as well as my hair. Have you ever asked her to marry you, asked Clive's friend. "'I have seen her but five times since my return from abroad,' the lad went on. "'There has been always somebody by. Who am I? A painter with five hundred a year for an allowance. Isn't she used to walk up on velvet and dine upon silver? And hasn't she got marquises and barons and all sorts of swells in her drain? I daren't ask her.' Here his friend hummed Montrose's lines.
He either fears his fate too much, or his desert is small, who dares not put it to the touch and win or lose it all. I own I dare not ask her. If she were to refuse me, I know I should never ask again. This isn't the moment when all sweldom is at her feet for me to come forward and say, Maiden, I have watched thee daily. And I think thou lovest me well. I read that ballad to her at Baden, sir. I drew a picture of the Lord of Burleigh wooing the maiden, and asked what she would have done. Oh, you did, I thought, when we were at Baden. We were so modest that we did not even whisper our condition. A fellow can't help letting it be seen and hinting it, says Clive, with another blush. They can read it in our looks fast enough.
And what is going on in our minds, hang them. I recollect, she said, in her grave, cool way, that after all, the Lord and Lady of Burleigh did not seem to have made a very good marriage, and that the Lady would have been much happier in marrying one of her own degree. That was a very prudent saying for a young lady of eighteen, remarks Clive's friend. Yes, But it was not an unkind one," said Ethel thought. Thought, what was the case? And being engaged herself, and knowing how friends of mine had provided a very pretty little partner for me. She is a dear, good little girl, little Rosie, and twice as good, Penn, when her mother is away. Knowing this and that, I say, suppose Ethel wanted to give me a hint to keep quiet.
Was she not right in the counsel she gave me? She is not fit to be a poor man's wife. Fancy Ethel Newcomb going into the kitchen and making pies like Aunt Honeyman. The Circassian beauties don't sell under so many thousand purses, remarked Mr. Pendennis. If there's a beauty in a well-regulated Georgian family, they fatten her. They feed her with the best Rochelleau de Sarovs. They give her silk robes and perfumed baths, have her taught to play on the dulcimer and dance and sing, and when she is quite perfect, send her down to Constantinople for the sultan's inspection. The rest of the family think never of grumbling, but eat coarse meat, bathe in the river, wear old clothes, and praise Allah for their sister's elevation.
Bah! Do you suppose the Turkish system doesn't obtain all over the world? My poor Clive, this article in the Mayfair Market is beyond your worship's price. Some things in this world are made for our betters, young man. Let Dive say grace for his dinner, and the dogs and Lazarus be thankful for the crumbs. Here comes Warrington, shaven and smart as if he was going out a-courting. Thus it will be seen that, in his communication with certain friends who approached nearer to his own time of life, Clive was much more eloquent in Raph's article than in the letter which he wrote to his father regarding his passion for Miss Ethel. He celebrated her with pencil and pen. He was forever drawing the outline of her head, the solemn eyebrow.
The nose, that wondrous little nose, descending from the straight forehead, the short upper lip, and chin sweeping in a full curve to the neck, etc., etc. A frequenter of his studio might see a whole gallery of Ethels there represented. When Mrs. McKenzie visited that place, and remarked one face and figure repeated on a hundred canvases and papers, gray, White and Brown. I believe she was told that the original was a famous Roman model, from whom Clive had studied a great deal during his residence in Italy, on which Mrs. Mack gave it as her opinion that Clive was a sad, wicked young fellow. The widow thought, rather, the better of him for being a sad, wicked young fellow, and as for Miss Rosie, she was, of course, a mama's way of thinking.
Rosie went through the world constantly smiling at whatever occurred. She was good-humored through the dearest long evenings at the most stupid parties, saked good-naturedly for hours at shulbreads whilst Mama was making purchases, heard good-humoredly those old, old stories of her mother's day after day, were an hour's joking or an hour's scolding with equal good humor. And whatever had been the occurrences of her simple day, whether there was sunshine or cloudy weather, or flashes of lightning and bursts of rain, I fancy Miss Mackenzie slept after them quite undisturbedly, and was sure to greet the morrow's dawn with a smile. Had Clive become more knowing in his travels, had love or experience opened his eyes, that they look so differently now upon objects which before used well enough to please him?
It is a fact that, until he went abroad, he thought Widow Mackenzie a dashing, lively, agreeable woman. He used to receive her stories about Cheltenham, the colonies, the balls of the government house, the observations which the bishop made, and the peculiar attention of the Chief Justice to Mrs. Major Machein. With the Major's uneasy behavior, all these, to hear at one time, did Clive not ungraciously incline. Our friend Mrs. Mack, the good old colonel used to say, is the clever woman of the world. and has seen a great deal of company. That story of Sir Thomas Sadman dropping a pocket-handkerchief in his court at Colombo, which the Queen's advocate, O'Gogarty, picked up and on which Laura MacS was embroidered, whilst the Major was absolutely in the witness box, giving evidence against a native servant who had stolen one of his cocked hats.
That story always made good Thomas Newcomb laugh, and Clive used to enjoy it, too, and the widow's mischievous fun in narrating it. And now, behold, one day when Mrs. Mackenzie recounted the anecdote in her best manner to Mrs. Pendennis and Warrington and Frederick Bayham, who had been invited to meet Mr. Clive in Fitzroy Square, When Mr. Binney chuckled, when Rosie, as in duty-bound, looked discomposed and said, "'Law, Mama!' Not one sign of good humor, not one ghost of a smile made its apparition on Clive's dreary face. He painted imaginary portraits with a strawberry stalk. He looked into his water-glass as though he would plunge and drown there. And Bayham had to remind him that the claret jug was anxious to have another embrace from its constant friend, F.B.
When Mrs. Mack went away to stripting smiles, Clive groaned out, "'Good heavens, how that story does bore me,' and lapsed into his form of moodiness, not giving so much as a glance to Rosie, whose sweet face looked at him kindly for a moment as she followed in the wake of her mama." "'The mother's the woman for my money,' I heard F.B. whisper to Warrington. "'Splendid figurehead, sir. Magnificent build, sir. From bows to stern. I like him of that sort.' "'Thank you, Mr. Benny. I will take a backhander, as Clive don't seem to drink. The youth, sir, has grown melancholy with his travels. I'm inclined to think some noble Roman has stolen the young man's heart.' Why did you not send us over a picture of the Charmer, Clive?
Young Ridley, Mr. Binney, you will be happy to hear, is bidding fair to take a distinguished place in the world of arts. His picture has been greatly admired, and my good friend Mrs. Ridley tells me that Lord Todd Morden has sent him over in order to paint him a couple of pictures at a hundred guineas apiece. I should think so. J.J.'s pictures will be worth five times a hundred guineas if five years are over," says Clive. In that case, it wouldn't be a bad speculation for our friend Sherrick, remarked F.B., to purchase a few of the young man's works. I would, only I haven't the capital to spare. Mine has been vested in an Odessa venture, sir. In a large amount of wild oats, which up to the present moment make me no return.
But it will always be a consolation to me to think that I have been the means, the humble means, of furthering that deserving young man's prospects in life. U.F.B., and how, we asked. By certain humble contributions of mine to the press, answered Bayham, majestically. Mr. Warrington, the claret happens to stand with you. An exercise does it good, sir? Yes, the articles, trifling as they may appear, have attracted notice, continued F.P., sipping his wine with great gusto. They are noticed, Pendennis. Give me leave to say. By parties who don't value so much the literary or even the political part of the Pell-Mell Gazette. Though both, I am told by those who read them, are conducted with considerable Consummate ability.
John Ridley sent a hundred pounds over to his father the other day, who funded it in his son's name. And Ridley told the story to Lord Todd Morton. When the venerable nobleman congratulated him on having such a child, I wish F.B. had one of the same sort, sir, in which sweet prayer we all of us joined with a laugh. One of us had told Mrs. Mackenzie, let the criminal blush to own that quizzing his fellow creatures used at one time to form part of his youthful amusement. That F.B. was the son of a gentleman of most ancient family and fast-landed possessions, and as Bayham was particularly attentive to the widow and grandiloquent in his remarks, she was greatly pleased by his politeness and pronounced him a most distinguating man, reminding her, indeed, of General Hopkirk, who commanded in Canada.
And she bade Rosie sing for Mr. Bayham, who was in rapture at the young lady's performances, and said no wonder such an accomplished daughter came from such a mother. Though how such a mother could have a daughter of such an age, he, F.B., was at a loss to understand. Oh, sir, Mrs. Mackenzie was charmed, and overcome at this novel compliment. Meanwhile, the little artless Rosie warbled on her pretty ditties. "'It is a wonder,' growled out Mr. Warrington, "'that that sweet girl can belong to such a woman. I don't understand much about women, but that one appears to me to be—' "'What, George?' asked Warrington's friend. "'Well, an ogling, leering, scheming, artful old campaigner. Grumbled the misogynist.
As for the little girl, I should like to have her to sing to me all night long. Depend upon it, she would make a much better wife for Clive than that fashionable cousin of his he is anchoring after. I heard him bellowing about her the other day in chambers as I was dressing. What the deuce does the boy want with a wife at all? And Rosie's song being by this time finished, Warrington went up with a blushing face and absolutely paid a compliment to Miss McKenzie, an almost unheard of effort on George's part. I wonder whether it is every young fellow's lot, quote George, as we trudged home together, to pawn his heart away to some girl that's not worth the winning. Sure, it's all mad rubbish, this sentiment.
The women ought not to be allowed to interfere with us. Married, if a man must be, a suitable wife should be portioned out to him, and there an end of it. Why doesn't the young man marry this girl, and get back to his business and paint his pictures? Because his father wishes it, and the old Nabob yonder, who seems a kindly disposed, easy-going, old heathen philosopher. He is a pretty little girl. Money, I suppose, in sufficiency. Everything satisfactory, except, I grant you, the campaigner. The lad might daub his canvases, christen a child a year, and be as happy as any young donkey that browses on this commoner of ours. But he must go and hee-haw after a zebra, forsooth. A lucis naturi is she.
I never spoke to a woman of fashion, thank my stars. I don't know the nature of the beast, and since I went to our race balls as a boy, scarcely ever saw one, as I don't frequent operas and parties in London like you young flunkies of aristocracy. I heard you talking about this one. I couldn't help it, as my door was open and the young one was shouting like a madman. What? Does he choose to hang on on sufferance and hope to be taken, provided Miss can get no better? Do you mean to say that is the genteel custom, and that women in your confounded society do such things every day? Rather than have such a creature, I would take a savage woman who should nurse my dusky brood, and rather than have a daughter brought up to the trade, I would bring her down from the woods and sell her in Virginia.
With which burst of indignation our friend's anger ended for that night. Though Mr. Clive had the felicity to meet his cousin Ethel at a party or two in the ensuing weeks of the season, Every time he perused the features of Lady Q's brass knocker on Queen Street, no result came of the visit. At one of their meetings in the world, Ethel Fairley told him that her grandmother would not receive him. You know, Clive, I can't help myself, nor would it be proper to make you signs out of the window. But you must call for all that. Grandma, Ma, may become more good-humored, or, if you don't come, she may suspect I told you not to come, and to battle with her day after day is no pleasure, sir, I assure you.
Here is Lord Farentosh, coming to take me to dance. You must not speak to me all the evening. Mind that, sir. And away goes the young lady, in a waltz with the Marquis. On the same evening, As he was biting his nails, or cursing his fate, or wishing to invite Lord Ferentosh into the neighboring garden of Berkeley Square, whence the policeman might carry to the station house the corpse of the survivor, Lady Q would bow to him with perfect graciousness. On other nights, her ladyship would pass and no more recognize him than the servant who opened the door. If she was not to see him at her grandmother's house, and was not particularly unhappy at his exclusion, why did Miss Newcomb encourage Mr. Clive so that he should try and see her?
If Clive could not get into the little house in Queen Street, why was Lord Parentosch's enormous cab horse looking daily into the first-floor windows of that street? Why were little quiet dinners made for him, before the opera, before going to the play, upon a half-dozen occasions, when some of the old, old Hugh Porte was brought out of the cellar, where cobwebs had gathered round it if Arentosh was born? The dining-room was so tiny that not more than five people could sit at the little round table. That is, not more than Lady Q and her granddaughter, Miss Crochet, the late Vickers' daughter at Q-Berry, one of the Miss Totens and Captain Walleye, or Tommy Henchman, Farantosh's kinsman and admirer, who were of no consequence, or old Fred Tiddler, whose wife was an invalid and who was always ready at a moment's notice.
Once went to one of these dinners, but that young soldier, being a frank and high-spirited youth, abused the entertainment and declined more of them. I tell you what I was wanted for, the captain told his mess and clive at the Regent's Park barracks. Afterwards, I was expected to go as Farentoche's groom of the stole. Don't you know to stand, or if I could sit, in the back seat of the box? Whilst His Royal Highness made talk with the beauty to go out and fetch the carriage and walk downstairs with that deep, crooked old dowager that looks as if she usually rode on a broomstick by Jove, or else with that bony old, painted, sheep-faced companion who's rattled like an old bellwether. I think, Newcomb, you seem rather hit by the bell cuisine.
So I was last season. So were ever so many of the fellows. By Joe, sir, there's nothing I know more comfortable or inspiring than a younger son's position when a marquee cuts in with 15,000 a year. We fancy we've been making running, and suddenly we find ourselves nowhere. Miss Mary, or Miss Lucy, or Miss Ethel, saving your presence, will no more look at us than my dog will look at a bit of bread. When I offer her this cutlet, will you, old woman, know you old slut that you won't? To Mag, an Isle of Sky Terrier, who in fact prefers the cutlet, having snuffed it disdainfully at the bread. That you won't, no more than any of your sex. Why do you suppose, if Jack's eldest brother had been dead, be a bone spell size, they used to call him?
I don't believe he was a bad fellow, though he was fond of psalm-singing. Do you suppose that Lady Clara would have looked at that cocktail Barney Newcomb? Beg your pardon, if he's your cousin, but a more odious little snob I never saw." "'I give you up, Barnes,' said Clive, laughing. "'Anybody may shy at him, and I shan't interfere.' "'I understand, but at nobody else of the family.' Well, what I mean is that that old woman is enough to spoil any young girl she takes in hand. She dries him up and poisons him, sir. And I was never more glad than when I heard that Q had got out of her old clutches. Frank is a fellow that will always be led by some woman or another, and I'm only glad it should be a good one.
They say his mother's serious, and that, but why shouldn't she bet? Continues Honest Crackthorpe, puffing his cigar with great energy. They say the old dowager doesn't believe in God nor devil, but that she's in such a funk to be left in the dark that she howls and raises the deuce's own delight if her candle goes out. Toppleton slept next door to her at Groningham and heard her. Didn't you, Top? Heard her howling like an old cat on the tile, said Toppleton. Thought she was at first. My man told me that she used to fling all sorts of things, boot jacks and things, give you my honor, at her maid, and that the woman was all over black and blue. Capital head, that is, Newcomb, has done of Jack Bell's eyes, says Crackthorpe, from out of his cigar.
And cues, too, famous likeness. I say, Newcomb, If you haven't painted, the whole brigade will subscribe. Make your fortune. See if you won't, Christoppleton. He's such a heavy swell. He don't want to make his fortune ejaculate, Butts. Butts, old boy, he'll paint you for nothing, and send you to the exhibition, where some widow will fall in love with you. "'And you shall be put as front of peace for the Book of Beauty by Jove,' cries another military satirist, to whom butts. "'You hold your tongue, you old Saracen's head. They're going to have you done on the bear's grease pots. I say, I suppose Jack's all right now. When did he write to you last, Cracky?' He wrote from Palermo, a most jolly letter from him in queue.
He hasn't touched a card for nine months, is going to give up play. So is Frank, too, grown quite a good boy. So will you, too, butts, you old miscreant. Repent of your sins, pay your debts, and do something handsome for that poor, deluded milliner in Albany Street. Jack says Q's mother has written over to Lord Highgate a beautiful letter. And the old boy's relenting, and they'll come together again. Jack's eldest son now, you know. Bore for Lady Susan only having girls. Not a bore for Jack, though, cries another. And what a good fellow Jack was. And what a Trump Q is. How famously he stuck by him, went to see him in prison, and paid him out. And what good fellows we all are, in general. became the subject of the conversation, the latter part of which took place in the smoking-room of the Regent's Park barracks, then occupied by that regiment of lifeguards of which Lord Q and Mr.
Belsize had been members. Both were still fondly remembered by their companions, and it was because Belsize had spoken very warmly of Clive's friendliness to him that Jack's friend, the gallant Crackthorpe had been interested in our hero, and found an opportunity of making his acquaintance. With these frank and pleasant young men, Clive soon formed a considerable intimacy, and if any of his older and peaceful friends chanced to take their afternoon airing in the park and survey the horsemen there, we might have the pleasure of beholding Mr. Newcomb in Rotten Row. Riding side by side with other dandies, who had mustachios blonde or jet, who wore flowers in their buttons, themselves being flowers of spring, who rode magnificent thoroughbred horses, scarcely touching their stirrups with the tips of their varnished boots, and who kissed the most beautiful primrose-colored kid gloves to lovely ladies, passing them in the ride.
Clive drew portraits of half the officers of the lifeguards green, and was appointed painter and ordinary to that distinguished corps. His likeness of the colonel would make you die with laughing. His picture of the surgeon was voted a masterpiece. He drew the men in the saddle, in the stable, in their flannel dresses, sweeping their flashing swords about, receiving lancers, repelling infantry. Nay, cutting, a sheep in two, as some of the warriors are known to be able to do at one stroke. Detachments of life-guardsmen made their appearance in Charlotte Street, which was not very distant from their barracks. The most splendid cabs were seen prancing before his door, and curly-whiskered youths of aristocratic appearance, smoking cigars out of his painting-room window.
How many times did Clive's next-door neighbor, little Mr. Finch, the miniature painter, run to peep through his parlour blinds, hoping that a sitter was coming and a carriage party driving up? What wrath Mr. Scholar, A-R-A, was in, because a young hop-of-my-thumb dandy, who wore gold chains and his collars turned down, should spoil the trade and draw portraits for nothing. Why did none of the young men come to Scholar? Scholar was obliged to own that Mr. Newcomb had considerable talent, and a good knack at catching a likeness. He could not paint a bit, to be sure, but his heads in black and white were really tolerable. His sketches of horses very vigorous and lifelike. Mr. Gandish said if Clive would come for three or four years into his academy, he could make something of him.
Mr. Smee shook his head and said he was afraid that kind of loose, dulcetory study, that keeping of aristocratic company, was anything but favorable to a young artist. Smee, who would walk five miles to attend an evening party of ever so little a great man.
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44 44 - Chapter 44: In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an Amiable Light 39:40
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray Chapter 44 In which Mr. Charles Honeyman appears in an amiable light. Mr. Frederick Bayham waited at Fitzroy Square while Clive was yet talking with his friends there, and favored that gentleman with his company home to the usual smoky refreshment. Clive always rejoiced in F.B.'s society, whether he was in a sportive mood or, as now, in a solemn and didactic vein. F.B. had been more than ordinarily majestic all the evening. I dare say, You find me a good deal altered, Clive, he remarked. I am a good deal altered, since that good Samaritan, your kind father, had compassion on a poor fellow, fallen among thieves. Though I don't say, mind you, he was much better than his company.
F.B. has mended some of his ways. I am trying a course of industry, sir. Powers, Perhaps naturally great, have been neglected over the wine cup and the dye. I am beginning to feel my way, and my chiefs yonder, who have just walked home with their cigars in their mouths, and without as much as saying, F.B., my boy, shall we go to the haunt and have a cool lobster and a glass of table beer, which they certainly do not consider themselves to be. I say, sir. The politician and the literary critic. There was a most sarcastic emphasis laid on these phrases, characterizing Messrs. Warrington and Penn Dennis. May find that there is a humble contributor to the Pell-Mell Gazette, whose name may be, the amateur shall one day reckon, even higher than their own.
Mr. Warrington, I do not say so much. He was an able man, sir, an able man. But there is that about your exceeding self-satisfied friend, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, which—well, well, let time show. You did not get the—him—paper at Rome in Naples, I suppose? Forbidden by the Inquisition, says Clive delighted, and at Naples the King furious against it. "'I don't wonder they don't like it at Rome, sir. There's serious matter in it, which may set the prelates of a certain church rather in a tremor. You haven't read the, um, the pulpit pencilings in the PMG? Slight sketches, mental and corporeal, of our chief divines now in London, and signed Latimer?' "'I don't do much in that way,' said Clive." So much the worse for you, my young friend.
Not that I mean to judge any other fellow harshly. I mean any other fellow sinner harshly. Or that I mean that those pulpit pencilings should be likely to do you any great good. But, such as they are, they have been productive of benefit. Thank you, Mary and my dear. The tap is uncommonly good, and I drink to your future husband's good health. A glass of good sound beer refreshes, after all, that claret. Well, sir, to return to the pencilings, pardon my vanity in saying that though Mr. Pendennis laughs at them, they have been of essential service to the paper. They give it a character. They rally round it the respectable classes. They create correspondence. I have received many interesting letters, chiefly from females, about the pencilings.
Some complain that their favorite preachers are slighted. Others applaud because the clergymen they sit under are supported by F.B. I am Lord Latimer, sir, though I have heard the letters attributed to the Reverend Mr. Bunker and to a member of Parliament eminent in the religious world. "'So you are the famous Lord, Latimer,' cries Clive, who had, in fact, seen letters signed by those right reverend names in our paper. Famous is hardly the word. One who scoffs at everything I need not say, I allude to Mr. Arthur Pendennis, would have had the letters signed, the Beatle of the parish.'" He calls me the venerable Beadle sometimes, it being, I grieve to say, his way to deride grave subjects. You wouldn't suppose now, my young Clive, that the same hand which pens the art criticisms occasionally, when His Highness Pendennis is lazy, takes a minor theatre, or turns the sportive epigram, or the ephemeral paragraph, should adopt a grave theme on a Sunday.
and chronicle the sermons of British divines. For eighteen consecutive Sunday evenings, Clive, in Mrs. Ridley's front parlor, which I now occupy, vice Miss Cam promoted, I have written the pencilings, scarcely allowing a drop of refreshment, except under extreme exhaustion, to pass my lips. Pendennis laughs at the pencilings. He wants to stop them. and says they bore the public. I don't want to think a man is jealous, who was himself the cause of my engagement at the PMG. Perhaps my powers were not developed then. Penn thinks he writes better now than when he began, remarked Clive. I have heard him say so. His opinion of his own writings is high, whatever their date. Mine, sir, Are only just coming into notice.
They begin to know F.B., sir, in the sacred edifices of his metropolitan city. I saw the Bishop of London looking at me last Sunday week, and I'm sure his chaplain whispered to him, It's Mr. Bayham, my lord, nephew of your lordship's right reverend brother, the lord bishop of Bullock-Smithy. And last Sunday being at church, at St. Mungo, the martyrs, Reverend Sauter's, by Wednesday I got in a female hand, Mrs. Sauter's, no doubt, the biography of the incumbent of St. Mungo, an account of his early virtues, a copy of his poems, and a hint that he was the gentleman destined for the vacant deanery. Ridley is not the only man I have helped in this world, F.B. continued. Perhaps I should blush to own it.
I do blush, but I feel the ties of early acquaintance, and I own that I have puffed your uncle, Charles Honeyman, most tremendously. It was partly for the sake of the Ridleys and the tick he owes them, partly for old times' sake. Sir, are you aware that things are greatly changed with Charles Honeyman, and that the poor Ep B has very likely made his fortune?" "'I am delighted to hear it,' cried Clive. "'And how, F. B., have you wrought this miracle?' "'By common sense and enterprise, lad. By a knowledge of the world and a benevolent disposition. You'll see Lady Whittlesey's Chapel bears a very different aspect now. That miscreant Sherrick owes that he owes me a turn, and has sent me a few dozen of wine.' Without any stamped paper on my part in return, as an acknowledgment of my service.
It chanced, sir, soon after your departure for Italy, that going to his private residence respecting a little bill to which a heedless friend had put his hand, Sherrick invited me to partake of tea in the bosom of his family. I was thirsty. Having walked in from Jack Straw's castle at Hampstead, where poor Kitely and I had been taking a chop, and accepted the preferred entertainment. The ladies of the family gave us music after the domestic muffin. And then, sir, a great idea occurred to me. You know how magnificently Miss Sherrick and the mother sing. They sang Mozart, sir. Why, I asked of Sherrick, should those ladies who sing Mozart to a piano not sing Handel to an organ? Dash it! You don't mean a hurdy-gurdy.
Sherrick, says I, you are no better than an heathen ignoramus. I mean, why shouldn't they sing Handel's church music, and church music in general in Lady Whittlesey's chapel? Behind the screen up in the organ loft, what's to prevent them? By Jingo, your singing boys have gone to the cave of harmony. You and your choir have split. Why should not these ladies lead it? He caught at the idea. You never heard the chants were finally given, and they would be better still if the congregation would withhold their confounded tongues. It was an excellent, though a harmless dodge, sir. And drew immensely, to speak profanely. They dressed the part, sir, to admiration, a sort of nun-like costume they come in.
Mrs. Sherrick has the soul of an artist still. By Jove, sir, when they have once smelt the lamps, the love of the trade never leaves them. The ladies actually practiced by moonlight in the chapel, and came over to Honeyman's to an oyster afterwards. The thing took, sir. People began to take box seats, I mean, again. And Charles Honeyman, easy in his mind through your noble father's generosity, perhaps inspirited by returning good fortune, has been preaching more eloquently than ever. He took some lessons of Hustler, of the Haymarket, sir. His sermons are old, I believe, but so to speak, he has caught them up with new scenery, dresses and effects, sir. They have flowers, sir, about the building.
Pious ladies are supposed to provide them. But, entre nous, Sherrick contracts for them with Nathan, or someone in the Covent Garden, and—don't tell this now, upon your honor—tell what, F.B. S. Clive? I got up a persecution against your uncle for popish practices, summoned a meeting at the running footman. And Ballingbroke Street. Billings the Butterman. Sharwood the Turner and Blockingmaker. And the Honorable Phelan O'Courag. Lord Scullabog's son made speeches. Two or three respectable families, your aunt, Mrs. What-do-you-call-em, Newcomb, amongst the number, quitted the chapel in disgust. I wrote an article of controversial biography in the PMG. Said the business going in the Daily Press, and the thing was done, sir.
That property is a paying one to the incumbent, and to Sherrick over him. Charles's affairs are getting all right, sir. He never had the pluck to owe much, and if it be a sin to have wiped his slate clean, satisfied his creditors, and made Charles easy, upon my conscience I must confess that F.B. has done it. I hope I may never do anything worse in my life, Clive. It ain't bad to see him doing the martyr, sir. Sebastian riddled with paper pellets. Bartholomew on a cold gridiron. Here comes the lobster. Upon my word, Mary, a finer fish I've seldom seen. Now surely this account of his uncle's affairs and prosperity was enough to send Clive to Lady Whittlesey's chapel. And it was not because Miss Ethel had said that she and Lady Q went there that Clive was induced to go there, too.
He attended punctually on the next Sunday, and in the incumbent's pew, whither the pew woman conducted him, St. Mr. Sherrick, in great gravity, with large gold pins, who handed him at the anthem a large, new, gilt hymn-book. In Odour of Mellifleurs, Lustled by them as Charles Honeyman, accompanied by his ecclesiastical valet, passed the pew from the vestry, and took his place at the desk. Formerly, he used to wear a flaunting scarf over his surplice, which was very wide and full. And Clive remembered when, as a boy, he entered the sacred robbing room, how his uncle used to pat and puff out the scarf and the sleeves of his vestment, and to arrange the natty curl on his forehead and take his place.
A fine example of florid church decoration. Now the scarf was trimmed down to be as narrow as your neckcloth, and hung loose and straight over the back. The ephod was cut straight, and as close and short as might be. I believe there was a little trimming of lace to the narrow sleeves, and a slight arabesque of tape, or other substance, round the edge of the surplus. As for the curl on the forehead, it was no more visible than the maypole in the strand, or the cross at chairing. Honeyman's hair was parted down the middle, short in front, and curling delicately round his ears and the back of his head. He read the service in a swift manner, and with a gentle twang. When the music began, he stood with head on one side and two slim fingers on the book, as composed as a statue in a medieval niche.
It was fine to hear Sherrick, who had an uncommonly good voice, join in the musical parts of the service. The produce of the market garden have decorated the church here and there, and the impresario of the establishment, having picked up a Flemish-painted window from Old Moss in Water Street, had placed it in his chapel. Labels of faint green and gold, with long Gothic letters painted thereon, meandered over the organ loft and galleries, and strove to give as medieval a look to Lady Whittlesey's as the place was capable of assuming. In the sermon, Charles dropped the twang with the surplus, and the priest gave way to the preacher. He preached short, stirring discourses on the subjects of the day.
It happened that a noble young prince, the hope of a nation, and heir of a royal house, had just then died by a sudden accident. Absalom, the son of David, furnished Honeyman with a parallel. He drew a picture of the two deaths, of the grief of kings, of the fate that is superior to them. It was, indeed, a stirring discourse, and caused thrills for the crowd to whom Charles imparted it. Famous ain't it, says Sherrick, giving Clive a hand when the rite was over. How he's come out, hasn't he? Didn't think he had it in him. Sherrick seems to have become, of late, impressed with the splendor of Charles's talent, and spoke of him, was it not disrespectful, as a manager would of a successful tragedian.
Let us pardon Sherrick. He had been in the theatrical way. "'That Irishman was no go at all,' he whispered to Mr. Newcomb. "'Got rid of him. Let's see at Michaelmas.' On account of Clive's tender years and natural levity, a little inattention may be allowed to the youth, who certainly looked about him very eagerly during the service. The house was filled by the ornamental glasses, the bonnets of the newest Parisian fashion, Away in a darkling corner, under the organ, sat a squad of footmen. Surely that powdered one in livery wore Lady Q's colors. So Clive looked under all the bonnets, and presently spied old Lady Q's face, as grim and yellow as her brass knocker, and by it, Ethel's beauteous countenance.
He dashed out of church when the congregation rose to depart. "'Stop and see Honeyman, won't you?' asked Sherrick, surprised. "'Yes, yes, come back again,' said Clive, and was gone. He kept his word, and returned presently. The young Marquis and an elderly lady were in Lady Q's company. Clive had passed close unto Lady Q's venerable Roman nose, without causing that organ to bow in ever so slight a degree towards the ground. Ethel had recognized him with a smile and a nod. My lord was whispering one of his noble pleasantries in her ear. She laughed at the speech or the speaker. The steps of a fine belozenged carriage were let down with a bang. The yellow one had jumped up behind it, by the side of his brother, Giant Canary.
Lady Cusack's page had disappeared, and Mrs. Cantretons was stopping the way. Clive returned to the chapel by the little door, near to the vestirium. All the congregation had poured out by this time. Only two ladies were standing near the pulpit, and Sherrick, with his hands rattling his money in his pockets, was pacing up and down the aisle. Capital house, Mr. Newcomb, wasn't it? I counted no less than fourteen knobs. The Princess of Montcontour and her husband, I suppose, that chap with the beard, who yawned so during the sermon. I'm blessed if I didn't think he'd have yawned his head off. Countess of Q and her daughter. Countess of Canterton. And the Honorable Miss Fetlock. No, Lady Fetlock.
A Countess's daughter is a lady. I'm dashed if she ain't. Lady Glen Levitt and her sons, the most noble the Marquis of Farentosh, and Lord Henry Roy, that makes seven, no nine, with the prince and princess. Julia, my dear, you came out like a good'un today. Never heard you in finer voice. Remember Mr. Clive Newcomb? Mr. Clive made bows to the ladies who acknowledged him by graceful curses. Miss Sherrick was always looking to the bestry door. How's the old Colonel? The best feller. Excuse my calling him a feller, but he is, and a good one, too. I went to see Mr. Binney, my other tenant. He looks a little yellow about the gills, Mr. Binney. Very proud woman, that is, who lives with him. Uncommon haughty.
When will you come down and take your mutton in the Regent's Park, Mr. Clive? "'There's some tolerable good wine down there.' Our Reverend Gent drops in and takes a glass, don't he, Mrs.' "'We shall be most happy to see you, Mr. Newcomb, I'm sure,' says the handsome and good-natured Mrs. Sherrick. "'Won't we, Julia?' "'Oh, certainly,' says Julia, who seems rather absent. And behold, at this moment the Reverend Gent enters from the vestry." Both the ladies run towards him, holding forth their hands. "'Oh, Mr. Honeyman, what a sermon!' Me and Julia cried so up in the organ loft. "'We thought you would have heard us, didn't we, Julia?' "'Oh, yes,' says Julia, whose hand the pastor is now pressing.
"'When you described the young man, I thought of my poor boy, didn't I, Julia?' cries the mother, with tears streaming down her face. "'We had a loss more than ten years ago,' whispers Sherrick to Clive gravely. "'And she's always thinking of it. Women are so.' Clive was touched and pleased by this exhibition of kind feeling. "'You know his mother was an Absalom,' the good wife continues, pointing to her husband. "'Most respectable Diamond Merchant's Inn.' "'Hold your tongue, Betsy, and leave my poor old mother alone. Do now,' says Mr. Sherrick darkly. Clive is in his uncle's fond embrace by this time, who rebukes him for not having called in Walpole Street. Now, when will you two gents come up to my shop to have a family dinner?"
asked Sherrick. Ah, Mr. Newcomb, do come," says Julia in her deep, rich voice, looking up to him with her great black eyes. And if Clive had been a vain fellow like some folks, who knows, but he might have thought he had made an impression on the handsome Julia. Thursday. Now make it Thursday, if Mr. H is disengaged. Come along, girls, for the flies bites the ponies when they're a-standin' still, and makes them mad this weather. Anything you like for dinner? Cut a salmon and cucumber. No, pickled salmon's best this weather. "'Whatever you give me, you know I'm thankful,' says Honeyman, in a sweet, sad voice, to the two ladies, who were standing looking at him, the mother's hand clasped in the daughter's.
"'Should you like that Mendelssohn for the Sunday after next, Julia sings it splendid.' "'No, I don't, Ma. You do, dear. She's a good, good dear, Mr. H. That's what she is.' "'You must not call him, eh?' Him in that way. Don't say Mr. H. Ma, says Julia. Call me what you please, says Charles, with the most heart-rending simplicity, and Mrs. Sherrick straightaway kisses her daughter. Sherrick, meanwhile, has been pointing out the improvement of the chapel to Clive, which now has indeed a look at the Gothic Hall at Rosherville. and has confided to him the sum for which he screwed the painted window out of old moss. When he come to see it up in this place, sir, the old man was mad. I give you my word.
His son ain't no good, says he knows you. He's such a screw, that chap, that he'll overreach himself, mark my words. At least, he'll never die rich. Did you ever hear of me screwing? No. I spend my money like a man. How those girls are going on about their music with Honeyman. I don't let him sing in the evening, or him do duty more than once a day. And you can calculate how the music draws, because in the evening there ain't half the number of people here. Reverend Mr. Journeyman does the duty now. Quiet Hogforth, man. Ill. I suppose this morning. H. sits in his pew, where we was, and coughs. That's to say, I told him to cough. The women like a consumptive parson, sir. Come, gals. Clive went to his uncle's lodgings, and was received by Mr.
and Mrs. Ridley with great glee and kindness. Both of those good people had made it a point to pay their duty to Mr. Clive immediately on his return to England. And thanked him over and over again for his kindness to John James. Never, never would they forget his goodness, and the colonels, they were sure. A cake, a heap of biscuits, a pyramid of jams, six frizzling mutton chops, and four kinds of hot wine. Come bustling up to Mr. Hanuman's room twenty minutes after Clive had entered it, as a token of the Ridley's affection for him. Clive remarked with a smile, the Pell-Mell Gazette upon a side table, and in the chimney glass almost as many cards as in the time of Honeyman's early prosperity.
That he and his uncle should be very intimate together was implausible, from the nature of the two men. Clive being frank, clear-sighted, and imperious, Charles timid, Vain and double-faced, conscious that he was a humbug, and that most people found him out, so that he would quiver and turn away, and be more afraid of young Clive and his direct, straightforward way than of many older men. Then there was the sense of the money transactions between him and the Colonel, which made Charles Honeyman doubly uneasy. In fine, they did not like each other. But as he is a connection of the most respectable Newcomb family, surely he is entitled to a page or two in these there memoirs. Thursday came, and with it Mr.
Sherrick's Entertainment, to which also Mr. Binney and his party had been invited to meet Colonel Newcomb's son. Uncle James and Rosie brought Clive in their carriage. Mrs. McKenzie sent a headache as an apology. She chose to treat Uncle James' landlord with a great deal of hauteur, and to be angry with her brother for visiting such a person. In fact, you see how fond I must be of dear little Rosie, Clive, that I put up with all Mama's tantrums for her sake," remarks Mr. Benny. Oh, Uncle, says little Rosie, and the old gentleman stopped her remonstrances with a kiss. Yes, says he. Your mother does have tantrums, miss, and though you never complain, there's no reason why I shouldn't. You will not tell on me.
It was, oh, uncle again, and Clive won't, I am sure. This little thing, sir," James went on, holding Rosie's pretty little hand and looking fondly in her pretty little face, is her old uncle's only comfort in life. I wish I had had her out to India to me. And never come back to this great, dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by Tom Newcomb, and I'm too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls, let it lie. Rosie would have been whisked out of my house in India in a month after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken her away from me, and now she has promised never to leave her old Uncle James, hasn't she? No, never, Uncle, said Rosie. We don't want to fall in love, do we, child?
We don't want to be breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing attendance at balls night after night, and capering about in the park to see if we can get a glimpse of the beloved object and Rosie. Rosie blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both knew of Clive's love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of the carriage both blushed. And, as for the secret, why Mrs. McKenzie and Mrs. Hobson had talked it a hundred times over. This little Rosie, sir, has promised to take care of me on this side of sticks, continued Uncle James, and if she could, but be left alone, and to do it without Mama. There I won't say a word more against her. We should get on none the worse.
Uncle James I must make a picture of you for Rosie," said Clive, good-humoredly. And Rosie said, Oh, thank you, Clive, and held out that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind and happy that Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of so much innocence and candor. Quasti piccoli, Rossini, says James, in a fine Scottish-Italian. I love you, Bella, love you, Cara, regards a Don't, Uncle, cried Rosie again, and Clive laughed at Uncle James' wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue. Eh, I thought you didn't know a word of the sweet language, Rosie. It's just the Ligui Toscani in Pocchi Romani that I thought to try and compliment to this young monkey who has seen the world. And by this time St.
John's Wood was reached and missed to Sherrick's handsome Thea, at the door of which the three beheld the Reverend Charles Honeyman stepping out of a neat brogham. The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick when she was in the theatrical line. Sneeze portrait of her, which was never half-handsome enough, for my Betsy, Sherrick said indignantly. The print of her in Attack Circus, with her signature as Elizabeth Fultorp. Not in truth a fine specimen of calligraphy. The testimonial presented to her on the conclusion of the triumphal season of 18 blank. At Drury Lane, by her ever-grateful friend Aldolphus Smacker. Let's see, who, of course, went to law with her next year. and other thespian emblems.
But Clive remarked, with not a little amusement, that the drawing-room tables were now covered with a number of those books which he had seen at Madame de Montcontour's, and many French and German ecclesiastical gimcracks, such as are familiar to numberless readers of mine. These were the lives of St. Bautibole of Islington and St. Willibald of Bear Acres, with pictures of those confessors. Then there was the legend of Marjorie D'Or, virgin and martyr, with a sweet double frontispiece, representing One. The sainted woman selling her feather bed for the benefit of the poor, and two. Reclining upon straw, the leanest of invalids. There was old daddy longlegs, and how he was brought to say his prayers.
A tale for children by a lady, with the preface stated, St. Chad's Eve, and signed CH. The Reverend Charles Honeyman's Sermons, delivered at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel. Poems of Early Days by Charles Honeyman, A. M., The Life of Good Dame Whittlesey by Du Du. Yes, Charles had come out in the literary line, and there, in a basket, was a strip of Berlin work of the very same Gothic pattern which Madame de Molcontor was weaving, and which you afterwards saw around the pulpit of Charles's Chapel. Rosie was welcomed most kindly by the kind ladies, and as the gentlemen sat over their wine after dinner in the summer evening, Claws beheld Rosie and Julia pacing up and down the lawn, Miss Julia's arm around her little friend's waist.
He thought they would make a pretty little picture. "'My girl ain't a bad one to look at, is she?' said the pleased father. "'A fellow might look far enough, and see not prettier than them two.' Charles sighed out that there was a German print, the two Leonoros, which put him in mind of their various styles of beauty. I wish I could paint them, said Clive. And why not, sir, asks his host. Let me give you your first commission now, Mr. Clive. I wouldn't mind paying a good bit for a picture of my Julia. I forget how much old Smee got for Betsy's, the old humbug. Clive said it was not the will. But the power that was deficient. He succeeded with men, but the ladies were too much for him as yet. Those you've done up at Albany Street barracks are famous.
I've seen them," said Mr. Sherrick, and remarking that his guest looked rather surprised at the idea of his being in such company. Sherrick said, What? You think they are two great swells for me? Lord bless you. I often go there. I've business with several of them, had with Captain Belsize, with the Earl of Kew, who's every inch the gentleman, one of nature's aristocracy, and paid up like a man. The Earl and me has had many dealings together. Honeyman smiled faintly, and nobody complying with Mr. Sherrick's boisterous entreaties to drink more. The gentleman quitted the dinner-table, which had been served in a style of prodigious splendor, and went to the drawing-room for a little music. This was all of the gravest and best kind, so grave indeed that James Binney might be heard in a corner, giving an accompaniment of little snores to the singers and the piano.
But Rosie was delighted with the performance, and Sherrick remarked to Clive, That's a good gal, that is. I like that gal. She ain't jealous of Julia cutting her out in the music, but listens as pleased as anyone. She's a sweet little pipe of her own, too, Miss Mackenzie. If ever you like to go to the opera, send a word either to my West End or my city office. I've boxes every week, and you're welcome to anything I can give you. So all agreed that the evening had been a very pleasant one, and they of Fitzroy Square returned home talking in a most comfortable, friendly way. That is, two of them, for Uncle James fell asleep again, taking possession of the back seat, and Clive and Rosie prattled together.
He had offered to try and take all the young lady's likenesses. You know what a failure the last was, Rosie. He had very nearly said, Dear Rosie, yes, but Miss Sherrick is so handsome that you will succeed better with her than with my round face, Mr. Newcomb. Mr. what? cries Clive. Well, Clive then, says Rosie in a little voice. He sought for a little hand which was not very far away. You know we are like brother and sister, dear Rosie, he said this time. Yes, said she, and gave a little pressure of the hand. And then Uncle James woke up, and it seemed as if the whole drive didn't occupy a minute, and they shook hands very, very kindly at the door of Fitzroy Square. Clive made a famous likeness of Miss Sherrick, with which Mr.
Sherrick was delighted, and so was Mr. Honeyman, who happened to call upon his nephew once or twice when the ladies happened to be sitting. Then Clive proposed to the Reverend Charles Honeyman to take his head off, and made an excellent likeness and chalk of his uncle. That one, in fact, from which the print was taken, which you may see any day at Hoggers, in the Haymarket, along with a whole regiment of British divines. Charles became so friendly that he was constantly coming to Charlotte Street once or twice a week. Mr. and Mrs. Sherrick came to look at the drawing. We're charmed with it, and when Rosie was sitting, they came to see her portrait, which again was not quite so successful. One Monday, the Sherricks and Honeyman, too, happened to call to see the picture of Rosie, who trotted over with her uncle to Clive's studio, and they all had a great laugh at a paragraph in the Pell-Mell Gazette, Evidently from F.B.'s hand, to the following effect.
Conversion in high life. A foreign nobleman of princely rank, who has married an English lady and has resided among us for some time, is likely, we hear and trust, to join the English church. The Prince D. M-n-c-n-t-r has been a constant attendant at Lady Whittlesey's chapel, of which the Reverend C. Honeyman is the eloquent incumbent, and it is said the sound and talented divine has been the means of awakening the prince to a sense of the erroneous doctrines in which he has been bred. His ancestors were Protestant and fought by the side of Henry IV at Ivory. In Louis XIV's time, they adopted the religion of that persecuting monarch. We sincerely trust that the present heir of the House of Ivory will see fit to return to the creed which his forefathers so unfortunately abjured.
The ladies received this news with perfect gravity, and Charles uttered a meek wish that it might prove true. As they went away, They offered more hospitalities to Clive and Mr. Binney and his niece. They liked the music. Would they not come and hear it again? When they had departed with Mr. Honeyman, Clive could not help saying to Uncle James, Why are those people always coming here, praising me, and asking me to dinner? Do you know, I can't help thinking, that they'd rather want me as a pretender for Miss Sherrick? Benny burst into a loud guffaw and cried out, "'O vanatis vanatotum!' Rosa laughed, too. "'I don't think it any joke at all,' said Clive. "'Why, you stupid lad, don't you see? It is Charles Honeyman the girl's in love with,' cried Uncle James.
"'Rosie saw it in the very first instant we entered their drawing room three weeks ago.' "'Indeed, and how?' asked Clive. By the way she looked at him, said Little Rosie.
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45 45 - Chapter 45: A Stag of Ten 22:27
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 45, A Stag of Ten. The London season was very nearly come to an end. And Lord Farentosh had danced I don't know how many times with Miss Newcomb, had drunk several bottles of the old Q Port, had been seen at numerous breakfasts, offers, races, and public places by the young lady's side, and had not as yet made any such proposal as Lady Q expected for her granddaughter. Clive going to see his military friends in the Regent Park once, And finished Captain Butt's portrait in barracks, heard two or three young men talking, and one say to another, I bet you three to two, Ferentosh don't marry her, and I bet you even that he don't ask her. Then, as he entered Mr.
Butt's room, where these gentlemen were conversing, there was a silence and an awkwardness. The young fellows were making an event out of Ethel's marriage. And sporting their money freely on it. To have an old countess hunting a young marquee so resolutely that all the world should be able to look on and speculate whether her game would be run down by that staunch, toothless old pursuer. That is an amusing sport, isn't it? And affords plenty of fun and satisfaction to those who follow the hunt. But for a heroine of a story, be she ever so clever, handsome, and sarcastic, I don't think for my part. At this present stage of the tale, Miss Ethel Newcomb occupies a very dignified position. To break her heart in silence for Tompkins, who is in love with another.
To suffer no end of poverty, starvation captured by ruffians, ill-treatment by a bullying husband. Loss of beauty by the smallpox, death even at the end of the volume. All these mishaps a young heroine must endure, and has endured in romances over and over again, without losing the least dignity, or suffering any diminution of the sentimental reader's esteem. But a girl of great beauty, high temper, and strong natural intellect. who submits to be dragged hither and thither in an old grandmother's leash, and in pursuit of a husband who will run away from the couple. Such a person, I say, is in a very awkward position every day. And I declare, if I had another ready to my hand, and unless there were extenuating circumstances, Ethel should be deposed at this very sentence.
But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his wife, for better or worse, and to the end. For how many years had the Spaniards born with their gracious queen, not because she was faultless, but because she was there? So Chambers and Grandies cried, God save her. Alabanderos turned out, drums beat, cannons fired, and people saluted Isabella Segunda, who was no better than the humblest washerwoman of her subjects. Are we much better than our neighbors? Do we never yield to our peculiar temptation, our pride, or our avarice, or our vanity, or what not? Ethel is very wrong, certainly. But recollect, she is very young. She is in other people's hands. She has been bred up and governed by a very worldly family, and taught their traditions.
We would hardly, for instance, the staunchest Protestant in England would hardly be angry with poor Isabella II for being a Catholic. So if Ethel worships at a certain image, which a great number of good folks in England bow to, let us not be too angry with her idolatry. And bear with our queen a little before we make our pronunciamento. No, Miss Newcomb, yours is not a dignified position in life. However, you may argue that hundreds of people in the world are doing like you. Oh, me! What a confession it is, in the very outset of life and blushing brightness of youth's mourning, to own that the aim with which a young girl sets out, and the object of her existence, is to marry a rich man, that she was endowed with beauty, so that she might buy wealth.
And a title with it, that, as sure as she has a soul to be saved, her business here on earth is to try and get a rich husband. That is the career for which many a woman is bred and trained. A young man begins the world with some aspirations, at least. He will try to be good and follow the truth. He will strive to win honors for himself, and never do a base action. He will pass knights over his books, and forego ease and pleasure, so that he may achieve a name. Many a poor wretch who is worn out now and old, and bankrupt of fame and money, too, has commenced life, at any rate, with noble views and generous schemes, from which weakness, idleness, passion, or overpowering hostile fortune had turned him away.
But a girl of the world, bon dieu, the doctrine with which she begins is that she is to have a wealthy husband. The article of faith in her catechism is, I believe in elder sons, and a house in town, and a house in the country. They are mercenary as they step fresh and blooming into the world out of the nursery. They have been schooled there to keep their bright eyes, to look only on the prince and the duke. Croesus and Davis. By long, cramping and careful process, their little natural hearts have been squeezed up, like the feet of their fashionable little sisters in China. As you see a pauper's child, with an awful premature knowledge of the pawn shop, able to haggle at market with her wretched halfpence and battle bargains at huckster stalls.
You shall find a young beauty who was a child in the schoolroom a year since, as wise and knowing as the old practitioners on that exchange, as economical of her smiles, as dexterous in keeping back or producing her beautiful wares, as skillful in setting one bidder against another, as keen as the smartest merchant in vanity fair. If the young gentlemen of the lifeguard's green, who were talking about Miss Newcomb and her suitors, were silent when Clive appeared amongst them, it was because they were aware not only of his relationship to the young lady, but his unhappy condition regarding her. Certain men there are who never tell their love, but let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on their damask cheeks.
Others, again, must be not always thinking, but talking about the darling object. So it was not very long before Captain Crackthorpe was taken into Clive's confidence, and through Crackthorpe, very likely, the whole mess became acquainted with his passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced into the world, gave Clive small hopes of success. Putting to him, in their downright phraseology, the point of which he was already aware, that Miss Newcomb was intended for his superiors, and that he had best not make his mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful grapes which were beyond his reach. But the good-natured Crackthorpe, who had a pity for the young painter's condition, helped him so far.
and gained Clive's warmest thanks for his good offices by asking admission for Clive to entertain evening parties of the Beaumont, where he had the gratification of meeting his charmer. Ethel was surprised and pleased, and Lady Q surprised and angry at meeting Clive Newcomb at these fashionable houses. The girl herself was touched very lightly at his pertinacity in following her. As there was no actual feud between them, she could not refuse now and again to dance with her cousin, and thus be picked up such small crumbs of consolation as a youth in his state can get, lived upon six words vouchsafed to him in a quadrille, or brought home a glance of the eyes which he had presented to him in a waltz, or the remembrance of a squeeze of the hand on parting or meeting.
How eager he was to get a card to this party or that! How attentive to the givers of such entertainments! Some friends of his accused him of being a tuft-hunter and flatterer of the aristocracy, on account of his politeness to certain people. The truth was, he wanted to go wherever Miss Ethel was, and the ball was blank to him, which she did not attend. This business occupied not only one season, but two. By the time of the second season, Mr. Newcomb had made so many acquaintances that he needed few more introductions into society. He was very well known as a good-natured, handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son of an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to painting.
And who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his cousin, the beautiful Miss Newcomb. Kind folks who heard of this little hondure, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to their houses in consequence. I dare say those people who were good to him may have been themselves at one time, unlucky in their own love affairs. When the first season ended without a declaration from my lord, Lady Q carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it also so happened that Lord Farentosh was going to shoot, and people made what surmises they chose upon this coincidence. Surmises? Why not? You who know the world know very well. That if you see Mrs. So-and-so's name in the list of people at an entertainment, on looking down the list, you will presently be sure to come on Mr.
What Are Your Columns? If Lord and Lady of such-and-such Castle received a distinguished circle, including Lady Dash, For Christmas or Easter, without reading farther the names of the guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk is one of the company. These coincidences happen every day. And some people are so anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible is the magnetic sympathy, I suppose, that they will travel hundreds of miles in the worst of weather to see their friends, and break your door open almost, provided the friend is inside it. I am obliged to own the fact that for many months Lady Q hunted after Lord Farentosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where, as he was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship.
From Scotland she went to Paris, where he was taking lessons and dancing at the Chaumiere. From Paris to an English country house for Christmas, where he was expected, but didn't come, not being, his professor said, quite complete in the polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these maneuvers, or anything more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say we would depose her from her place of heroine at once. But she was acting under her grandmother's orders, a most imperious, irresistible, managing old woman who exacted everybody's obedience and managed everybody's business in her family. Lady Anne Newcomb, being in attendance on her sick husband, Ethel was consigned to the Countess of Kew, her grandmother, who hinted that she should leave Ethel her property when dead, and, whilst alive, expected the girls should go about with her.
She had, and wrote as many letters as the Secretary of State almost. She was accustomed to set off without taking anybody's advice. or announcing her departure until within an hour or two of the event. In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, which would have led her to stay at home with her father, but at the special wish and order of her parents. With such a sum as that of which Lady Q had the disposal, Hobson brothers knew the amount of it quite well, to be left out of the family. Forbid it, all ye powers. Barnes, who would have liked the money himself, and said truly that he would live with his grandmother anywhere she liked, if he could get it. Barnes joined most energetically with Sir Brian and Lady Anne in ordering Ethel's obedience to Lady Q.
You know how difficult it is for one young woman not to acquiesce when the family council strongly orders. In fine, I hope there was a good excuse for the queen of this history. And that it was her wicked, domineering old prime minister who led her wrong. Otherwise, I say, we would have another dynasty. Oh, to think of a generous nature, and the world, and nothing but the world to occupy it, of a brave intellect, and the milliner's bandboxes, and the scandal of the coteries, and the fiddle-faddle etiquette of the court for its sole exercise. Of the rush and hurry from entertainment to entertainment, of the constant smiles and cares of representation, of the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking to a godless morrow.
This was the course of life to which fate, and not her own fault altogether, had for a while handed over Ethel Newcomb. Let those pity her, who can feel their own weakness and misgoing. Let those punish her. Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland. He knew quite well that the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest, that, as a relation, she received him frankly and kindly enough, but checked him when he would have adopted another character, but a chance that they met in Paris, whether he went in the Easter or the ensuing year. Having worked to some good purpose through the winter, and dispatched, as on a former occasion, his three or four pictures, to take their chance at the exhibition.
Of these, it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate to some extent Mr. F. Bainham's favorite report. Fancy sketches and historical pieces our young man had instrued. Having convinced himself either that he had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his friends was a much easier task than that which he had set himself formally. Whilst all the world was crowding round a pair of J.J.'s little pictures, a couple of chalk heads were admitted into the exhibition. His great picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full uniform, I must admit, was ignominiously rejected. And the friends of the parties had the pleasure of recognizing in the miniature room number one, two, four, six, picture of an officer, viz.
Augustus Butz, Esquire, of the lifeguards Green, and portrait of the Reverend Charles Honeyman, number one, two, seven, two. Miss Sherrick, the hangers, refused. Mr. Binney, Clive had spoiled as usual in the painting. The heads, however, before named, were voted to be faithful likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and spirited manner. F. Bayham's criticism on these performances, it need not be said, was tremendous. Since the days of Michael Angelo, you would have thought there never had been such drawings. In fact, F.B., as some other critics do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the back, And trumpeted their merits with such prodigious energy as to make his friends themselves sometimes uneasy.
Mr. Clive, whose dear father was writing home more, and more wonderful accounts of the Bundelkund Bank, in which he had engaged, and who was always pressing his son to draw for more money, treated himself to comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very same hotel with the young Marquis of Barantoche, Occupied lodgings much more splendid, and where he lived, no doubt, so as to be near the professor, who was still teaching his lordship the polka. Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farentaugh made great progress under this artist, and that he danced very much better in his third season than in the first and second years after he had come upon the town. From the same instructor, the Marquis learned the latest novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and phrases for which he was famous, so that although his French grammar was naturally defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at Philippe's, and to bully a waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with extreme volubility.
A young nobleman of his rank was received with the distinction which was his due by the French sovereign of that period, and at the Tuileries and the houses of the French nobility which he visited. Monsieur Le Marquis de Farantoche excited considerable remark by the use of some of the phrases which his young professor had taught to him. People even went so far as to say that the Marquis was an awkward and dull young man, of the very worst manners. Whereas the young Clive Newcomb, and it comforted the poor fellow's heart somewhat, and, be sure pleased, Ethel, who was looking on at his triumphs, was one of the most charming young Englishmen who had been seen for a long time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son of her own, actually went, once or twice, into the world in order to see his debut.
Madame de Montcontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de Florac and received society there. The French people did not understand what bad English she talked, though they comprehended Lord Farentauche's French blunders. "'Mr. Newcomb is an artist. What a noble career,' cries a great French lady, the wife of a marshal, to the astonished Miss Newcomb. "'This young man is the cousin of the charming Mise.' "'You must be proud to possess such a nephew, madame,' says another French lady to the Countess of Kew, "'who, you may be sure, is delighted to have such a relative.'" And the French lady invites Clive to her receptions, expressly in order to make herself agreeable to the old comtesse. Before the cousins have been three minutes together in Madame de Fleurix Salon, she sees that Clive is in love with Ethel Newcomb.
She takes the boy's hand and says, Je vais votre secret, mon ami. And her eyes regard him for a moment as fondly, as tenderly, as ever they looked at his father. Oh, what tears have they shed, gentle eyes! Oh, what faith has it kept, tender heart! If love lives through all life, and survives through all sorrow, and remains steadfast with us through all changes, and in all darkness the spirit burns brightly, and, if we die, deplores us forever, and loves still equally, and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the faithful bosom. Whence it passes with a pure soul, beyond death, surely it shall be immortal. Though we who remain are separated from it, is it not ours in heaven? If we love still those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love?
Forty years have passed away. Youth and dearest memories revisit her. And Hope almost wakes up again out of its grave, as the constant lady holds the young man's hand and looks at the son of Thomas Newcomb.
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46 46 - Chapter 46: The Hotel de Florac 33:17
The Hotel du Florac Since the death of Duke Devery, The husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Comte de Florac, who is now the legitimate owner of the ducal title, does not choose to bear it, but continues to be known in the world by his old name. The old Count's world is very small. His doctor and his director, who comes daily to play his game of piquet. His daughter's children, who amuse him by their laughter and play around his chair in the garden of his hotel. His faithful wife, and one or two friends as old as himself from his society. His son, the Abbe, is with them but seldom. The austerity of his manners frightens his old father, who can little comprehend the religionism of the new school.
After going to hear his son preach through Lent at Notre Dame, where the Abbe de Florac gathered a great congregation. The old Count came away quite puzzled at his son's declamations. I do not understand your new priest, he says. I knew my son had become a Cordelia. I went to hear him, and found he was a Jacobin. Let me make my salute and quiet, my good Leonore. My director answers for me, and plays a game at Tittrack into the bargain with me. Our history has but little to do with this venerable nobleman. He has his chamber looking out into the garden of his hotel, his faithful old domestic to wait upon him. His house appears to attend when he is well enough, his few acquaintances to help him to pass the evening.
The rest of the hotel he gives up to his son, the Viscount du Florac. And Madame la Princesse de Montcontour, his daughter-in-law. When Florac had told his friends of the club why it is he has assumed a new title as a means of reconciliation, a reconciliation all philosophical, my friends, with his wife, Ney Higg, of Manchester, who adores titles like all Angleses. And has recently made a great succession. Everybody allows that the measure was dictated by prudence. And there is no more laughter at his change of name. The Princess takes the first floor of the hotel at the price paid for it by the American General, who has returned to his original pigs at Cincinnati. Had not Cincinnatus himself pigs on his farm?
And was he not a general and member of Congress, too? The Honest Princess has a bedchamber, which, to her terror, she is obliged to open of reception evenings, when gentlemen and ladies play cards there. It is fitted up in the style of Louis XVI. In her bed is an immense looking-glass, surmounted by stucco cupids. It is an alcove, which some powdered Venus before the Revolution might have reposed in. Opposite that looking glass, between the tall windows at some forty feet distance, is another huge mirror, so that when the poor princess is in bed, in her prim old curl papers, she sees a vista of elderly princesses twinkling away into the dark perspective, and is so frightened that she and Betsy, her Lancashire maid, pin up the John Quill Silk curtains over the bed mirror after the first night.
Though the princess never can get it out of her head, that her image is still there, behind the jonquil hangings, turning as she turns, waking as she wakes, etc. The chamber is so vast and lonely that she has a bed made for Betsy in the room. It is, of course, whisked away into a closet on reception evenings. A boudoir, Rosa Tondra. With more cupids and nymphs by Boucher sporting over door panels, nymphs who may well shock old Betsy and her old mistress. It's the princess's morning room. Ah, Mom, what would Mr. Humpert Manchester, Mr. Giles of Newcomb, the minister whom in early days Miss Higg used to sit under, say if they was brought into this room? But there is no question of Jowls and Mr.
Humper, excellent dissenting divines, who preached to Miss Higg, being brought into the Princess de Montcontour's boudoir. That paragraph, respecting a conversion in high life, which F.B., in his enthusiasm, inserted in the Pell-Mell Gazette, caused no small excitement in the Florak family. The Florak family read the Pell-Mell Gazette, Knowing that Clive's friends were engaged in that periodical. When Madame de Florac, who did not often read newspapers, happened to cast her eye upon that poetic paragraph of FB's, you may fancy with what a panic it filled the good and pious lady. Her son become a Protestant. After all the grief and trouble his wildness had occasioned to her, Paul forsake his religion.
But that her husband was so ill and aged as not to be able to bear her absence, she would have hastened to London to rescue her son out of that perdition. She sent for her younger son, who undertook the embassy, and the prince and princess de Montcouture, in their hotel at London, were one day surprised by the visit of the Abbe de Florac. As Paul was quite innocent of any intention of abandoning his religion, the mother's kind heart was very speedily set at rest by her envoy. Far from Paul's conversion to Protestantism, the Ave wrote home the most encouraging accounts of his sister-in-law's precious dispositions. He had communications with Madame de Montcanteur's Anglican director. A man of not-powerful mind, wrote Monsieur l'Ave.
Though of considerable repute for eloquence in his sect, the good dispositions of his sister-in-law were improved by the French clergyman, who could be most captivating and agreeable when a work of conversion was in hand. The visit reconciled the family to their English relative, in whom good nature and many other good qualities were to be seen now that there were hopes of reclaiming her. It was agreed that Madame de Montcanteur should come and inhabit the Hotel de Florac at Paris. Perhaps the Abbe tempted the worthy lady by pictures of the many pleasures and advantages she would enjoy in that capital. She was presented at her own court by the French ambassadorists of that day, and was received at the Tuileries with a cordiality which flattered and pleased her.
Having been presented herself, Madame la Princesse in turn presented to her August Sovereign, Mrs. T. Higg and Miss Higg of Manchester, Mrs. Samuel Higg of Newcombe, the husbands of those ladies, the princess's brothers, also sporting a court dress for the first time, Sam Higg's neighbor, the member for Newcombe, Sir Brian Newcombe, Bart was too ill to act as Higg's sponsor before Majesty, but Barnes Newcomb was uncommonly civil to the two Lancashire gentlemen, though their politics were different to his, and Sam had voted against Sir Brian at his last election. Barnes took them to dine at a club, recommended his tailor, and sent Lady Clara Poulain to call on Mrs. Higg. who pronounced her to be a pretty young woman and most halfable.
The Countess of Dorking would have been delighted to present these ladies had the Princess not luckily been in London to do that office. The Hobson Newcombs were very civil to the Lancashire party and entertained them splendidly at dinner. I believe Mrs. and Mr. Hobson themselves went to court this year. The latter in a deputy lieutenant's uniform. If Barnes-Newcomb was so civil to the Higgs family, we may suppose he had good reason. The Higgs were very strong in Newcomb, and it was advisable to conciliate them. They were very rich, and their account would not be disagreeable at the bank. Madame de Montcontour's, a large, easy private account, would be more pleasant still. And, Hobson brothers having entered largely into the Anglo-Continental Railway, whereof mention has been made, it was a bright thought of Barnes to place the Prince of Montcintour, etc., etc., on the French direction of the railway, and to take the princely prodigal down to Newcomb with his new title, and reconcile him to his wife and the Hig family.
Barnes, we may say, invented the principality, rescued the Viscount of Florac out of his dirty lodgings in Leicester Square, and sent the Prince of Montcontour back to his worthy middle-aged wife again. The disagreeable dissenting days were over. A brilliant young curate of Dr. Baldur's, who also wore long hair. Straight waistcoats and no shirt collars had already reconciled the Viscontus de Florac to the persuasion, whereof the ministers are clad in that queer uniform. The landlord of their hotel at St. James's got his wine from Sherrick and sent his families to Lady Whittlesey's Chapel. The Reverend Charles Honeyman's eloquence and amiability were appreciated by his new disciple. Thus the historian has traced here step by step how all these people became acquainted.
Sam Higg, whose name was very good on change in Manchester and London, joined the direction of the Anglo-Continental. A brother had died lately, leaving his money amongst them, and his wealth had added considerably to Madame de Florec's means. His sister invested a portion of her capital in the railway, in her husband's name. The shares were at a premium and gave a good dividend. The Prince de Montcontour took his place with great gravity at the Paris Board, where the Barnes made frequent flying visits. The sense of capitalism sobered and dignified Paul de Florac. At the age of five and forty, he was actually giving up being a young man. and was not ill-pleased at having to enlarge his waistcoats and to show a little gray in his mustache.
His errors were forgotten. He was bienveu by the government. He might have had the embassy extraordinary to Queen Pomer, but the health of Madame la Princesse was delicate. He paid his wife visits every morning, appeared at her parties in her opera box, and was seen constantly with her in public. He gave quiet little dinners still, at which Clive was present sometimes, and have a private door and key to his apartments, which was separated by all the dreary length of the reception rooms, from the mirrored chamber and jonquil couch where the Princess and Betsy reposed. When some of his London friends visited Paris, he showed us these rooms and introduced us duly to Madame la Princesse. He was as simple and as much at home in the midst of these splendors as in the dirty little lodgings in Leicester Square, where he painted his own boots and cooked his herring over the tongs.
As for Clive, he was the infant of the house. Madame la Princesse could not resist his kind face, and Paul was as fond of him in his way as Paul's mother in hers. Would he live at the Hotel de Florac? There was an excellent atelier in the pavilion, with a chamber for his servant. No, you will be most at ease in apartments of your own. You will have here but the society of women. I do not rise till late, and my affairs, my board, call me away for the greater part of the day. That wilt but be, anyway, to play trick-trak with my old father. My mother waits on him. My sister, O Second, is given up entirely to her children, who always have the pituit. Madame la Princesse is not amusing for a young man.
Come and go when thou wilt, Clive, my garcon. My son, thy cover is laid. Wilt thou take the portraits of all the family? Hast thou want of money? I had it my age, and almost ever since, mon ami. But now we swim in gold, and when there is a Louis in my purse, there are ten francs for thee. To show his mother that he did not think of the Reformed religion, Paul did not miss going to Mass with her on Sunday. Sometimes Madame Paul went too, between whom and her mother-in-law there could not be any liking, but there was now great civility. They saw each other once a day. Madame Paul always paid her visit to the Comte de Florac, and Betsy, her maid, made the old gentleman laugh by her briskness and talk.
She brought back to her mistress the most wonderful stories which the old man told her about his doings during the emigration, before he married Madame la Contesse, when he gave lessons in dancing parbleu. There was his fiddle still, a trophy at those old times. He chirped and coughed and sang in his cracked old voice as he talked about them. "'Lor bless you, Mum,' says Betsy. "'He must have been a terrible old man.' He remembered the times well enough, but the stories he sometimes told over twice or thrice in an hour, I am afraid he had not repented sufficiently of those wicked old times, else why did he laugh and giggle so when he recalled them?" He would laugh and giggle till he was choked with his old cloth, and old S.
Jean, his man, came and beat Monsieur Lecomte on the back, and made Monsieur Lecomte take a spoonful of his syrup. Between two such women as Madame de Florac and Lady Q, of course there could be little liking or sympathy. Religion, love, duty, the family were the French lady's constant occupation. Duty and the family, perhaps. Lady Q's aim, too. Only the notions of duty were different in either person. Lady Q's idea of duty to her relatives being to push them on in the world. Madame de Florex, to soothe, to pray, to attend them with constant watchfulness, to strive to mend them with pious counsel. I don't know that one lady was happier than the other. Madame de Florac's eldest son was a kindly prodigal.
Her second had given his whole heart to the church. Her daughter had centered hers on her own children, and was jealous if their grandmother laid a finger on them. So Leonor de Florac was quite alone. It seemed as if heaven had turned away all her children's hearts from her. Her daily business in life was to nurse a selfish old man. Into whose service she had been forced in early youth, by a paternal decree which he never questioned, giving him obedience, striving to give him respect—everything but her heart, which had gone out of her keeping. Many a good woman's life is no more cheerful, a spring of beauty, A little warmth and sunshine of love, a bitter disappointment, followed by pangs and frantic tears, then a long, monotonous story of submission.
"'Not here, my daughter, is to be your happiness,' says the priest, whom heaven loves it afflicts." And he points out to her the agonies of suffering saints of her sex, assures her of their present beatitudes and glories. The other matron is not less alone. Her husband and son are dead, without a tear for either. To weep was not in Lady Q's nature. Her grandson, whom she had loved perhaps more than any human being, is rebellious and estranged from her. Her children, separated from her, save one whose sickness and bodily infirmity the mother resents as disgraces to herself. Her darling schemes fail somehow. She moves from town to town and ball to ball and hall to castle, forever uneasy and always alone.
She sees people scared at her coming, is received by sufferance and fear rather than by welcome. Likes, perhaps, the terror which she inspires, and to enter over the breach rather than through the hospitable gate. She will try and command wherever she goes, and trample over dependence and society, with a grim consciousness that it dislikes her, a rage at its cowardice, and an unbounding will to dominate her. To be old, proud, lonely, and not have a friend in the world. That is her lot in it. As the French lady may be said to resemble the bird which the fables say feeds her young with her blood, this one, if she has a little natural liking for her brood, goes hunting hither and thither and robs meat for them.
And so, I suppose, to make the simile good, we must compare the Marquis of Farentauche to a lamb for the nonce, and Miss Nethel Newcomb to a young eaglet. Is it not a rare provision of nature, or fiction of poets who have their own natural history, that the strong-winged bird can soar to the land? After she became acquainted with certain circumstances, Madame de Florac was very interested about Ethel Newcomb. and strove in her modest way to become intimate with her. Miss Newcomb and Lady Q attended Madame de Molcontour's Wednesday evenings. It is as well, my dear, with the interests of the family, that we should be particularly civil to these people, Lady Q said, and accordingly she came to the Hotel de Florac and was perfectly insolent to Madame la Princesse every Thursday evening.
Towards Madame de Florac, even Lady Q could not be rude. She was so gentle as to give no excuse for assault. Lady Q vouchsafed you to pronounce that Madame de Florac was Tres Grands Dames. Of the sort which is almost impossible to find nowadays, Lady Q said, who thought she possessed this dignity in her own person. When Madame de Florac Blushing, asked Ethel to come and see her. Ethel's grandmother consented with the utmost willingness. She is very devotee, I have heard, and will try and convert you. Of course, you will hold your own about that sort of thing, and have the good sense to keep off theology. There is no Roman Catholic party in England or Scotland that is to be thought for a moment.
You will see they will marry young Lord Dernanwater to an Italian princess, but he is only seventeen, and his directors never lose sight of him. Sir Bartholomew Box will have a fine property when Lord Camion dies, unless Lord Camion leaves the money to the convent where his daughter is, and of the other families who is there. I made every inquiry purposely. That is, of course, one is anxious to know about the Catholics as about one's own people. And little Mr. Rude, who was one of my poor brother Stane's lawyers, told me there is not one young man of that party at this moment who can be called a desirable person. Be very civil to Madame de Florac. She sees some of the old legitimists. And you know I am Brouillet with that party of late years.
There is Marquis de Montblanc, who has a large fortune for France, said Ethel gravely. He has a humpback, but he is very spiritual. Monsieur de Catalan paid me some compliments the other night, and even asked George Barnes what my dot was. He is a widower, and has a wig and two daughters. Which do you think would be the greatest encumbrance, Grandmama, a humpback or a wig and two daughters? I like Madame de Florac. For the sake of the borough, I must try and like Madame de Montcontour. I will go and see them whenever you please. So Ethel went to see Madame de Florac. She was very kind to Madame de Prevel's children, Madame de Florac's grandchildren. She was gay and gracious with Madame de Montcontour.
She went again and again to the Hotel de Florac. Not caring for Lady Q's own circle of statesmen and diplomatists, Russian and Spanish and French, whose talk about the courts of Europe, who was in favor at St. Petersburg, and who was in disgrace at Schönbrunn, naturally did not amuse the lively young person. The goodness of Madame de Florac's life, the tranquil grace and melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, Soothed and pleased, Miss Ethel, she came and reposed in Madame de Florac's quiet chamber, or stayed in the shade in the sober old garden of her hotel, away from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies' visits in their fine toilettes.
The phalluses of the dancing dandies, and the pompous mysteries of the old statesman who frequented her grandmother's apartment. The world began for her at night, when she went in the train of the old Countess from hotel to hotel, and danced waltz after waltz with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with princes officers of ordnance, with personages even more lofty very likely. For the court of the Citizen King was then in its splendor, and there must surely have been a number of nimble young royal highnesses who would like to dance with such a beauty as Miss Newcomb. The Marquis of Farentage had a share in these polite amusements. His English conversation was not brilliant as yet, although his French was eccentric.
But at the court balls, whether he appeared in his uniform of the Scotch archers or in his native Glen Levitt tartan, this certainly was not in his own, with the public's estimation, a handsomer young nobleman in Paris that season. It has been said that he was greatly improved in dancing, and, for a young man of his age, his whiskers were really extraordinarily large and curly. Miss Newcomb. Out of consideration for her grandmother's strange antipathy to him, did not inform Lady Q that a young gentleman by the name of Clive occasionally came to visit the Hotel de Florac. At first, with her French education, Madame de Florac never would have thought of allowing the cousins to meet in her house, but with the English it was different.
Paul assured her that in the English chateaus, Les Mis walked for entire hours with the young men, made parties of the fish, mounted to horse with them, the whole with the permission of the mothers. When I was at Newcomb, Miss Ethel rode with me several times, Paul said. I prove that we went to visit an old relation of the family, who adores Clive and his father. When Madame de Fleuret questioned her son about the young Marquis, to whom it was said Ethel was engaged, Fleuret flouted the idea. Engaged? This young Marquis is engaged to the Théâtre des Varietés, my mother. He laughs at the notion of an engagement. When one charged him with it of late at the club, and asked how mademoiselle Luxor, she is so tall that they call her the Luxor.
She is an otolisk obelisk, my mare. When one asked how the Loxer would pardon his pursuit of Miss Newcomb, my escrocies permitted himself to say in full club that it was Miss Newcomb pursued him, that nymph, that Diane, that charming and peerless young creature. On which, as the others laughed, and his friend, Monsieur Walleye applauded, I dare to say in my turn, Monsieur Le Marquis, as a young man, not familiar with our language, you have said what is not true, milor, and therefore luckily not mischievous. I have the honor to count of my friends the parents of the young lady of whom you have spoken. You never could have intended to say that a young miss who lives under the guardianship of her parents and is obedient to them, whom you meet in society all the nights, and at whose door your carriage is to be seen every day, is capable of that with which you charge her so gaily.
These things say themselves, Monsieur, in the coulisses of the theatre. Of women from whom you learn our language, not of young persons pure and chaste, Monsieur de Farentauche. Learn to respect your compatriots, to honor youth and innocence everywhere, Monsieur. And when you forget yourself, permit one who might be your father to point where you are wrong." And what did he answer? asked the Contess. I attended myself to a Sophie. replied Florac, but his reply was much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes and a gros giron, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to say a word against that person, of whom the name, cried I, ought never to be spoken in these places. Herewith our little dispute ended.
So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his cousin at the Hotel de Florac. Where, I dare say, all the inhabitants wished he should have his desire regarding this young lady. The colonel had talked early to Madame de Florac about this wish of his life. Impossible then to gratify, because Ethel was engaged to Lord Q. Clive, in the fullness of his heart, imparted his passion to Florac. and in answer to Paul's offer to himself, had shown the Frenchman that kind letter in which his father bade him to carry aid to Leonor de Florac's son, in case he should need it. The case was all clear to the lively Paul. Between my mother and your good colonel, there must have been an affair at the heart in the early days during the emigration.
Clive owned his father had told him as much. At least that he himself had been attached to Mademoiselle Dubois. It is for that that her heart yearns towards thee, that I have felt myself entronned toward thee since I saw thee. Clive momentarily expected to be kissed again. Tell thy father that I feel, am touched by his goodness with an eternal gratitude, and love every one that loves my mother. As far as wishes went, these two were eager promoters of Clive's little love affair, and Madame la Princesse became equally not less willing. Clive's good looks and good nature had had their effects upon that good-natured woman, and he was as great a favorite with her as with her husband. And thus it happened that when Miss Ethel came to pay her visit and stayed with Madame de Florac and her grandchildren in the garden, Mr.
Newcomb would sometimes walk up the avenue there and salute the ladies. If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come? Yes, she used to say she was going to Madame de Prevel's, not Madame de Florac's, and would insist, I have no doubt, that it was Madame de Prevel whom she went to see. whose husband was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, a conseillere d'état, or other French bigwig, and that she had no idea of going to meet Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance at the Hotel de Florac. It was no part of her conduct in all her life which this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly than his intimacy at the Hotel de Florac. It is not with this I quarrel especially.
My fear young readers, who have seen a half dozen of seasons, can you call to mind the time when you had such a friendship for Emma Tompkins, that you were always at the Tompkins, and notes were constantly passing between your house and hers? When her brother, Padgett Tompkins, returned to India, did not your intimacy with Emma fall off? If your younger sister is not in the room, I know you will own as much to me. I think you are always deceiving yourselves and other people. I think the motive you put forward is very often not the real one, though you will confess, neither to yourself nor to any human being, what the real motive is. I think what you desire you pursue, and are as selfish in your way as your bearded fellow creatures are.
And as for the truth being in you, of all the women in a great acquaintance, I protest there are but, never mind, a perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of unspoken admiration. What a monster. I say, with such a female bee. Miss Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a year old. You worked on your papa's friends and the nurses' arms by the fascination of your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes, when you could just toddle. You practiced your arts upon other children in the square. Poor little Lampkins sporting among the daisies, and Nunc in Novelia.
Moxen Reluctantes Draconis, proceeding from the lambs to reluctant dragoons. You tried your arts upon Captain Padgett Tompkins, who behaved so ill and went to India without making those proposals which, of course, you never expected. Your intimacy was with Emma. It has cooled. Your sets are different. The Tompkinses are not quite, etc., etc. You believe Captain Tompkins married a Miss O'Grady, etc., etc. Ah, my pretty, my sprightly Miss Hopkins, be gentle in the judgment of your neighbors.
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47 47 - Chapter 47: Contains two or three Acts of a Little Comedy 55:00
All this story is told by one who, if he was not actually present at the circumstances he narrated, yet had information concerning them, and could supply such a narrative of facts and conversations as is, indeed, not less authentic than the details we have of other histories. How can I tell the feelings in a young lady's mind? The thoughts in a young gentleman's bosom? As Professor Owen, or Professor Agassiz, takes a fragment of a bone and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it, wallowing in primeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of plants that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be cold by this time. So the novelist puts this and that together. From the footprint finds the foot.
From the foot, the brute who trod on it. From the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which he swam. And thus, in his humble way, a physiologist, too, depicts the habits, size, appearance of the beings whereof he has to treat. Traces. This slimy reptile through the mud, and describes his habits filthy and rapacious, prods down this butterfly with a pin, and depicts his beautiful coat and embroidered waistcoat, points out the singular structure of yonder more important animal, the megatherium of his history. Suppose then, In the quaint old garden of the Hotel de Florac, two young people are walking up and down in the avenue of lime trees, which is still permitted to grow in that ancient place.
In the center of that avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a triton so gray and moss-eaten that though he holds his conch to his swelling lips, curling his tail in the arid basin, His instrument has had a sinecure for at least fifty years, and did not think fit even to play when the Bourbons, in whose time he was erected, came back from their exile. At the end of the lime tree avenue is a broken-nosed damp fawn, with a marble panpipe, who pipes to the spirit ditties which I believe never had any tune. The Peron of the hotel is at the other end of the avenue, a couple of caesars on either end of the door window, from which the inhabitants of the hotel issue into the garden. Caracalla, frowning over his moldy shoulder at Nerva, on to whose clipped hair the roofs of the Grey Chateau have been dribbling for ever so many long years.
There are more statues gracing this noble place. There is Cupid, who has been at the point of kissing Psyche this half-century at least, though the delicious event has never come off. Through all those blazing summers and dreary winters, there is Venus and her boy under the damp little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the alley of this old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in hoops and powder, Monsieur de Florac's chair is wheeled by St. Jean, his attendant. Madame de Prevel's children trot about and skip and play at cash-cash. The RP de Florac, when at home, paces up and down and meditates his sermons. Madame de Florac sadly walks sometimes to look at her roses, and Clive and Ethel Newcomb are marching up and down.
The children, and their bonn, of course, being there, jumping to and fro, and Madame de Florac, having just been called away to Monsieur Le Comte, whose physician has come to see him. Ethel says, How charming and odd this solitude is, and how pleasant to hear the voices of the children playing in the neighboring convict garden, of which they can see the new chapel rising over the trees. Clive remarks that the neighboring hotel has curiously changed its destination. One of the members of the directory had it, and no doubt, in the groves of its garden, Madame Tallien and Madame Ricamier And Madame Bohamis have danced under the lamps. Then a Marshal of the Empire inhabited it. Then it was restored to its legitimate owner, Monsieur Le Marquis de Brick-A-Brack, whose descendants, having a lawsuit about the Brick-A-Brack succession, sold the hotel to the convent.
After some talk about nuns, Ethel says, there were convents in England. She often thinks she would like to retire to one. And she sighs as if her heart were in that scheme. Clive, with a laugh, says, Yes, if you could retire after the season, when you were very weary of the balls, a convent would be very nice. At Rome, he had seen San Pietro in Monturio and Sant'Annafrio, that delightful old place where Tasso died. People go and make a retreat there. In the ladies' convents, the ladies do the same thing, and he doubts whether they are much more or less wicked after their retreat than gentlemen and ladies in England or France. Ethel, why do you sneer at all faith? Why should not a retreat do people good?
Do you suppose the world is so satisfactory that those who are in it never wish for a while to leave it? She heaves a sigh and looks down toward a beautiful new dress of many flounces, which Madame de Flonceval, the great milliner, has sent her home that very day. Clive, I do not know what the world is, except from afar off. I am like the Perry who looks into paradise and sees angels within it. I live in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, which is not within the gates of paradise. I take the gate to be somewhere in Davie Street, leading out of Oxford Street into Grosvenor Square. There's another gate in Hay Hill, and another in Bruton Street, Bond. Ethel, don't be a goose. Clive, why not? It is as good to be a goose as to be a lady.
No, a gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, and Earl. A Marquis, a Duke, would you say Goose? No, you would say Swan. Ethel. Unkind and unjust. Ungenerous to make taunts which common people make, and to repeat to me those silly sarcasms which your low, radical literary friends are always putting in their books. Have I ever made any difference to you? Would I not sooner see you than the fine people? Would I talk with you? Or with the young dandies most willingly? Are we not of the same blood, Clive? And of all the grandies I see about, can there be a grander gentleman than your dear old father? You need not squeeze my hand so. Those little imps are look. That has nothing to do with the question.
Bien, Leonore. T'es conor bien, monsieur. N'est-ce pas? Qui te fait de si, je le descends. Leonore. Ah, oui. Vous m'enverez toujours, n'est-ce pas, Monsieur Clive? Des chevaux, et puis des petites filles, avec leurs gouvernantes. Et puis de maison, et puis, et puis de maison encore, ou est bonne maman? Exit little Leonore down an alley. Ethel. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to make drawings for us? I have some now that you did, in my geography book, which I used to read and read with Miss Quigley. Clive. I remember all about our youth, Ethel. Ethel. Tell me what you remember. Clive. I remember one of the days when I first saw you. I have been reading the Arabian Nights at school.
And you came in in a bright dress of short silk, amber, and blue, and I thought you were like that fairy princess who came out of the crystal box. Because, Ethel, because why? Clive, because I always thought that fairy somehow must be the most beautiful creature in all the world. That is, why and because. Do not make me Mayfair curtsies. You know whether you are good-looking or not, and how long I have thought you so. I remember when I thought I would like to be Ethel's knight, and that if there was anything she would have me do, I would try and achieve it in order to please her. I remember when I was so ignorant I did not know there was any difference in rank between us. Ethel. Ah, Clive. Clive.
Now it is altered. Now I know the difference between a poor painter and a young lady of the world. Why haven't I a title and a great fortune? Why did I ever see you, Ethel? Or, knowing the distance which it seems fate has placed between us, why have I seen you again? Ethel. Innocently. Have I ever made any difference between us? Whenever I may see you, am I not too glad? Don't I see you sometimes when I should not? No, I do not say when I should not, but when others whom I am bound to obey forbid me. What harm is there in my remembering old days? Why should I be ashamed of our relationship? No, not ashamed. Shy should I forget it. Don't do that, sir. We have shaken hands twice already. Leonore!
Xavier! Clive! At one moment you liked me, and at the next you seemed to repent it. One day you seem happy when I come, and another day you are ashamed of me. Last Tuesday, when you came with those fine ladies to the Louvre, you seemed to blush when you saw me copying at my picture, and that stupid young lord looked quite alarmed because you spoke to me. My lot in life is not very brilliant, but I would not change it against that young man's. No, not with all his chances. Ethel. What do you mean, with all his chances? Clive. You know very well. I mean, I would not be as selfish or as dull or as ill-educated. I won't say worse of him, not to be as handsome or as wealthy or as noble as he is. I swear I would not now change my place against his, or give up being Clive Newcomb to be my Lord Marquis of Farentosh, with all his acres and titles of nobility.
Ethel, why are you forever harping about Lord Farentosh and his titles? I thought it was only women who were jealous. You gentlemen say so, hurriedly. I am going tonight with Grandmama to the Minister of the Interior, and then to the Russian Ball, and tomorrow to the Tuileries. We dine at the Embassy first, and on Sunday, I suppose, we shall go to the Rue d'Agosteaux. I can hardly come here before mon. Madame de Florac, little Leonore is very like you, resembles you very much. My cousin says he longs to make a drawing of her. Madame de Fleurac, my husband always likes that I should be present at his dinner. Pardon me, young people, that I have been away from you for a moment. Excellent, Clive, Ethel, and Madame de F.
into the house. Conversation Two, Scene One. Miss Newcomb arrives in Lady Q's carriage, which enters the court of the Hotel de Fleurac. St. Jean, Mademoiselle. Madame la Comtesse has gone out, but Madame has charged me to say that she will be at home to the dinner of Monsieur Le Comte, as to the ordinary. Miss Newcomb, Madame de Preville is at home. St. Jean, Pardon me. Madame has gone out with Monsieur Le Baron, and Monsieur Xavier, and Mademoiselle de Preville. They are gone, Miss, I believe, to visit the parents of Monsieur Le Baron. Of whom it is probably today the feat. For Mademoiselle Leonore carried a bouquet, no doubt for her grandpapa. Will it please Mademoiselle to enter? I think Monsieur the Count sounds me.
Bell rings. Miss Newcomb. Madame la Prince, Madame la Viscontesse is at home. Monsieur St. Jean. St. Jean. I go to call the people of Madame la Viscontesse. Exit old St. Jean to the carriage. A lackey comes presently in a gorgeous livery, with buttons like little cheese plates. The lackey. The princess is at home, miss, and will be most happy to see you, miss. Miss trips up the great stair. A gentleman out of livery has come forth to the landing, and introduces her to the apartments of Madame la Princesse. The lackey to the servants on the box. Good morning, Thomas. How'd you do? Oh, Backy Stopper. Backy Stopper. How'd you do, Jim? I say you couldn't give a feller a drink of beer, could Jim? It was precious wet last night.
I can tell you. I had to stop for three hours at the Neapolitan embassy when we was a-dancing. Me and some chaps went into Bob Parsons and had a drain. Old Cat came out and couldn't find a carriage. Not by no means, could she? Tommy? Blessed if I didn't nearly drive her into a vegetable cart. I was so uncommon, screwy. What's this, a hentering at your poke crusher? Billy, my fang feller. Clive Newcomb, by the most singular coincidence. Madame la Princesse? Lackey. Oui, monsieur. He rings a bell. The gentleman in black appears as before on the landing-place up the stair. Exit Clive. Baggy-Stomper. I say, Bill, is that young chap often a-coming here? They'd run pretty in a currico, wouldn't they?
Miss N and Master N. Quiet, old woman. Just look to that mare's end, will you, Billy? He's a fine young feller, that is. He gave me a covering the other night. Whenever I saw him in the park, he was always riding an handsome animal. What is he? They say in our all, he is an artist. I can hardly think that. Why, there used to be an artist come to our club and painted two or three of my horses, and my old woman, too. Lucky. There's hardesses and hardesses, Baggy Stopper. Why, there's some on em' comes here with more stars on their coats than Duke's has got. Have you ever heard of Monsieur Fernie or Monsieur Goudin? Baggy Stopper. They say this young gent is sweet on Miss N, which I guess I wish he may get it.
Tommy. He, he, he. Baggy Stopper. Brave old Tommy. Tommy ain't much of a man for conversation, but he's a precious one to drink. Do you think the young gent is sweet on her, Tommy? I saw him often prowling about our house in Queen Street when we was in London. Tommy, I guess he wasn't let in in Queen Street. I guess Hot Little Buttons was very near turned away for saying we was at home to him. I guess the footman's place is to keep his mouth open. No, his eyes open and his mouth shut. He lapses into silence. Laggy. I think Thomas is in love, Thomas is. Who was that young woman I saw you were dancing of at the show a year? Thomas. How was the young Marquis who was a cutting of it about there? The police was obliged to come up and stop him dancing.
His man told him. Old buzz-fuzz upstairs that the Marquis' goings-on is lawful. Up to four or five every morning, blind hooky. Champagne, the deuce's own delight. That party have had I don't know how much in diamonds. And they quarrel and swear at each other and fling plates. It's tremendous. Tommy. Why doesn't the Marquis man mind his own affairs? He's a supercilious beast, and would no more speak to a man, except he's out a livery, than he would to a chimney-swip. He, cuss him, I'd fight him for half a crown. Lucky. And we'd back you, Tommy. BuzzFuzz upstairs ain't supercilious, nor is the prince's valet neither. That old sang-bangs, a rum old governor. He was in England with the Count, fifty years ago, in the Hemigration.
In Queen Hand's time, you know, he used to support the old Count. He says he remembers a young Mr. Newcomb, then, that used to take lessons from the Chevalier. The Count is his father. There's my bell. Exit, Lackey. Becky Stauper. Not a bad chap, that. Sports his money very free. Sings an uncommon good song. Thomas. Pretty voice, but no cultivation. Lackey, who re-enters. Be here at two o'clock for Miss N. Take anything? Come round the corner. There's a capital shop round the corner. Excellent servants. Scene two. Ethel. I can't think where Madame de Mont-Contour has gone. How very odd it was that you should come here. "'That we should both come here today. "'How surprised I was to see you at the minister's.
"'Grandmama was so angry. "'That boy pursues us wherever we go,' she said. "'I'm sure I don't know why we shouldn't meet Clive. "'It seems to be wrong even when my seeing you by chance here. "'Do you know, sir, what a scolding I had about, "'about going to Brighton with you?' My grandmother did not hear of it till we were in Scotland, when that foolish maid of mine talked of it to her maid, and there was, oh, such a tempest. If there were a Bastille here, she would have to lock you into it. She says that you are always upon our way. I don't know how, I am sure. She says, but for you, I should have been. You know what I should have been. But I am thankful that I wasn't. And Q has got a much nicer wife in Henrietta Pauline than I could ever have been to him.
She will be happier than Clara, Clive. Q is one of the kindest creatures in the world. Not very wise, not very strong, but he is just such a kind, easy, generous little man, as will make a girl like Henrietta quite happy. Clive. But not you, Ethel. Ethel. No. Nor I him. My temper is difficult, Clive, and I fear few men would bear with me. I feel somehow always very lonely. How old am I? Twenty. I feel sometimes as if I was a hundred, and in the midst of all these admirations and fits and flatteries, so tired. Oh, so tired. And yet if I don't have them, I miss them. How I wish I was religious like Madame de Florac. There is no day that she does not go to church. She is forever busy with charities, clergymen, conversions.
I think the princess will be brought over ere long, that dear old Madame de Florac. And yet she is no happier than the rest of us. Who attends as an empty little thing, who thinks of her prosy fat Camille with spectacles, and of her two children, and of nothing else in the world besides. Who is happy? Clive. Clive. You say Barnes's wife is not. Ethel. We are like brother and sister, so I may talk to you. Barnes is very cruel to her. At Newcomb last winter, poor Clara used to come into my room with tears in her eyes, morning after morning. He calls her a fool, and seems to take a pride in humiliating her before company. My poor father has luckily taken a great liking to her, and before him, for he has grown very, very hot-tempered since his illness, Barnes leaves poor Clara alone.
We were in hopes that the baby might make matters better. But as it is a little girl, Barnes chooses to be very much disappointed. He wants Papa to give up his seat in Parliament, but he clings to that more than anything. Oh dear me, who is happy in the world? What a pity Lord Highgate's father had not died sooner. He and Barnes have been reconciled. I wonder my brother's spirit did not revolt against it. The old lord used to keep a great sum of money at the bank, I believe, and the present one does so still. He has paid all his debts off, and Barnes is actually friends with him. He is always abusing the dorkings who want to borrow money from the bank, he says. This eagerness for money is horrible.
If I had been Barnes, I would never have reconciled with Mr. Bell's size. Never, never. And yet they say he was quite right. And Grandmama is even pleased that Lord Highgate should be asked to dine in Park Lane. Poor Papa is there, come to attend his parliamentary duties as he thinks. He went to a division the other night, and was actually lifted out of his carriage and wheeled into the lobby in a chair. The ministers thanked him for coming. I believe he thinks he will have his peerage yet. Oh, what a life of vanity ours is. Enter Madame de Marc-Counteur. What are you young folks are talking about? Balls and operas? When first I was took to the opera, I did not like it and fell asleep. But now, oh, it's heavenly to hear Greasy sing.
The clock. Ting. Ding! Ethel. Two o'clock already. I must run back to Grandmama. Goodbye, Madame de Montcenteur. I am so sorry I have not been able to see dear Madame de Florac. I will try and come to her on Thursday. Please tell her. Shall we meet you at the American Ministers tonight, or at Madame de Brise tomorrow? Friday is your own night. I hope Grandmama will bring me. How charming your last music was. Good-bye, mon cousin. You shall not come downstairs with me. I insist upon it, sir, and had much best remain here and finish your drawing of Madame de Mocantour. Princess, I put on the velvet you see, Clive, though it's very odd in May. Good-bye, my dear. Exit Ethel. As far as we can judge from the above conversation, which we need not prolong, as the talk between Madame de Maucontour and Monsieur Clive, after a few complimentary remarks about Ethel, had nothing to do with the history of the Newcombs.
As far as we can judge, the above little colloquy took place on Monday, and about Wednesday, Madame la Conteste de Florac received a little note from Clive, in which he said that one day, when she came to the Louvre, where he was copying, she had admired a picture of a virgin and child by Sassoferrato, since when he had He had been occupied in making a watercolor drawing after the picture, and hoped she would be pleased to accept the copy from her affectionate and grateful servant, Clive Newcomb. The drawing would be done the next day. When he would call with it in his hand, of course, Madame de Florac received this announcement very kindly, and sent back by Clive's servant a note of thanks to that young gentleman.
Now, on Thursday morning, about one o'clock, by one of those singular coincidences which, et cetera, et cetera, who should come to the Hotel de Florac but Mrs. Ethel Newcomb? Madame la Conteste was at home, waiting to receive Clive in his picture. But Miss Ethel's appearance frightened the good lady, so much so that she felt quite guilty at seeing the girl, whose parents might think, I don't know what they might think, that Madame de Florac was trying to make a match between the young people. Hence arose the words uttered by the Countess after a while in Conversation Three. Madame de Florac, at work. And so you like to quit the world and come to our tryst old hotel. After today, you will find it still more melancholy, my poor child.
Ethel. And why? Madame de F. Someone who has been here to engage our little meetings will come no more. Ethel. Is the Abbe de Florac going to quit Paris, Madame? Madame de F. It is not of him that I speak. Thou knowest it very well, my daughter. Thou hast seen my poor Clive twice here. He will come once again, and then no more. My conscience reproaches me that I have admitted him at all. But he is like a son to me, and was so confided to me by his father. Five years ago, when we met, after an absence of how many years, Colonel Newcomb told me what hopes he had cherished for his boy. You know well, my daughter, with whom those hopes were connected. Then he wrote me that family arrangements rendered his plans impossible, that the hand of Miss Newcomb was promised elsewhere.
When I heard from my son Paul how those negotiations were broken, my heart rejoiced Ethel for my friend's sake. I am an old woman now, who have seen the world and all sorts of men. Men more brilliant, no doubt I have known, but such a heart as his, such a faith as his, such a generosity and simplicity as Thomas Newcomb's, never. Ethel, smiling. Indeed, my dear lady, I think with you. Madame de F., I understand thy smile, my daughter. I can say to thee that when we were children almost, I knew thy good uncle. My poor father took the pride of his family into exile with him. Our poverty only made his pride the greater. Even before the emigration, a contract had been passed between our family and the Count de Florac.
I could not be wanting to the word given by my father. For how many long years have I kept it? But when I see a young girl who may be made the victim, the subject of a marriage of convenience, as I was, my heart pities her. And if I love her, as I love you, I tell her my thoughts. Better poverty, Ethel. Better a cell in a convent than a union without love. Is it written eternally that men are to make slaves of us? Here in France, above all, our fathers sell us every day. And what a society ours is! Thou wilt know this when thou art married. There are some laws so cruel that nature revolves against them, and breaks them, or we die in keeping them. You smile. I have been nearly fifty years dying, n'est-ce pas?
And I'm here, an old woman, complaining to a young girl. It is because our recollections of youth are always young, and because I have suffered so, that I would spare those I love a like grief. Do you know that the children of those who do not love in marriage seem to bear an hereditary coldness, and do not love their parents as other children do? They witness our differences and our indifferences, hear our recriminations, take one side of the other in our disputes, and are partisans for father or mother. We force ourselves to be hypocrites and hide our wrongs from them. We speak of a bad father with false praises. We wear faint smiles over our tears and deceive our children. Deceive them, do we?
Even from the exercise of that pious deceit, there is no woman but suffers in the estimation of her sons. They may shield her as champions against their father's selfishness or cruelty. In this case, what a war! What a home! Where the son sees a tyrant in the father, and in the mother but a trembling victim. I speak not for myself. Whatever may have been the course of our long-wedded life, I have not to complain of these ignoble storms. But when the family chief neglects his wife, or prefers another to her, the children, too, courteous as we are, will desert her. You look incredulous about domestic love. Tenay, my child, if I may surmise, I think you cannot have seen it. Ethel. Blushing and thinking perhaps how she esteems her father, how her mother, and how much they esteem each other.
My father and mother have been most kind to all their children, Madame, and no one can say that their marriage has been otherwise than happy. My mother is the kindest and most affectionate mother, and... You're a vision of Sir Brian alone in his room, and nobody really caring for him so much as his valet. who loves him to the extent of fifty pounds a year and prerequisites. Or perhaps Miss Cannes, who reads to him and plays a good deal of evenings much to Sir Brian's liking. He, in this vision, we say, comes and stops Miss Ethel's sentence. Madame de F., your father, in his infirmity, and yet he is five years younger than Colonel Newcomb, is happy to have such a wife and such children. They comfort his age.
They cheer his sickness. They confide their griefs and pleasures to him. Is it not so? His closing days are soothed by their affection. Ethel. Oh, no, no! And yet it is not his fault or ours that he is stranger to us. He used to be all day at the bank, or at night in the House of Commons, or he and Mama went to parties, and we young ones remained with the governors. Mama is very kind. I have never, almost, known her angry, never with us, about us sometimes, with the servants. As children, we used to see Papa and Mama at breakfast, and then when she was dressing to go out. Since he has been ill, she has given up all parties. I wanted to do so, too. I feel ashamed in the world sometimes when I think of my poor father at home alone.
I wanted to stay, but my mother and my grandmother forbade me. Grandmama has a fortune, which she says I am to have. Since then, they have insisted on my being with her. She is very clever, you know. She is kind, too, in her way, but she cannot live out of society. And I, who pretend to revolt, I like it, too. And I, who rail and scorn flatterers, oh, I like admiration. I am pleased when the women hate me, and the young men leave them for me. Though I despise many of these, yet I can't help drawing them towards me. One or two of them I have seen unhappy about me. And I like it. And if they are indifferent, I am angry, and never tired till they come back. I love beautiful dresses. I love jewels.
I love a great name and a fine house. Oh, I despise myself when I think of these things. When I lie in bed and say I have been heartless and a coquette, I cry with humiliation, and then rebel and say, why not? And tonight, yes, tonight, After leaving you, I shall be wicked. I know I shall. Madame de F., sadly. One will pray for thee, my child. Ethel, sadly. I thought I might be good once. I used to say my own prayers then. Now I speak them but by rote, and feel ashamed, yes, ashamed to speak them. Is it not horror to say them, and next morning to be no better than you were last night? Often I revolt at these, as at other things, and am dumb. The vicar comes to see us at Newcomb, and eats so much dinner, and pays us such court, and Sir Brian's papa, and your ladyship's mamma.
With grandmamma I go to hear a fashionable preacher, Clive's uncle, whose sister lets lodgings at Brighton. Such a queer, bustling, pompous, honest old lady. Do you know that Clive's aunt let's lodgings at Brighton? Madame de F., My father was an usher in a school, Monsieur de Florac gave lessons in the emigration. Do you know in what? Ethel, Oh, the old nobility. That is different, you know, that Mr. Honeyman is so affected that I have no patience with him. Madame de F., with a sigh, I wish you could attend the services of a better church. And when was it you thought you might be good, Ethel? Ethel. When I was a girl, before I came out, when I used to take long rides with my dear Uncle Newcomb, and he used to talk to me in his sweet, simple way, and he said I reminded him of someone he once knew.
Madame de F. Who? Who was that, Ethel? Ethel. Looking up at Gerard's picture of the Countess de Fleurac. What odd dresses you wore in the time of the Empire, Madame de Florac. How could you ever have such high waists and such wonderful phrases? Madame de Florac kisses Ethel. Tableau. Enter St. Jean, preceding a gentleman with the drawing board under his arm. St. Jean. Monsieur Clive, exit St. Jean. Clive, how do you do, Madame la Contesse? Mademoiselle.
Madame de F., do you come from the Louvre? Have you finished that beautiful coffee, mon ami? Clive, I have brought it for you. It is not very good. There are always so many petite demoiselles copying that sassoferrato, and they chatter about it so, and hop from one easel to another. And the young artists are always coming to give them advice, so that there is no getting a good look at the picture. But I have brought you the sketch, and am so pleased that you asked for it." Madame de F. surveying the sketch. It is charming, charming. What shall we give to our painter for her chef d'oeuvre? Clive kisses her hand. There is my pay. And you will be glad to hear that two of my portraits have been received at the exhibition.
My uncle, the clergyman, and Mr. Butts are the lifeguards. Ethel. Mr. Butts, callum. Churnakonel, Monsieur Butts. Clive. He has a famous head to draw. They refused Crackthorpe and, and one or two other heads I sent in. Ethel. Tossing of hers. Miss Mackenzie's, I suppose. Clive. Yes, Miss Mackenzie's. It is a sweet little face, too delicate for my hand, though. Ethel. So is a wax doll's a pretty face, pink cheeks, china-blue eyes, and hair the color of old Madame Hepburnfels. Not her last hair. Her last, but one. She goes to a window that looks into the court. Clive to the Countess. Miss Mackenzie speaks more respectfully of other people's eyes than here. She thinks there is nobody in the world to compare to Miss Newcomb.
Madame de F. aside. And you, mon ami? This is the last time, attendez-vous? You must never come here again. If Monsieur Lecomte knew it, he would never pardon me. Encore? He kisses her ladyship's hand again. Clive. A good action gains to be repeated. Miss Newcomb, does the view of the courtyard please you? The old trees in the garden are better. That dear old fawn without a nose. I must have a sketch of him. The creepers around the base are beautiful. Miss N. I was looking to see if the carriage had come for me. It is time that I return home. Clive. That is my Brogham. May I carry you anywhere. I hire him by the hour, and I will carry you to the end of the world. Miss N. Where are you going, Madame de Florac?
To show that sketch to Monsieur Lecomte? Dear me, I don't fancy that Monsieur de Florac can care for such things. I am sure I have seen many as pretty on the keys, but twenty-five sous. I wonder the carriage has not come for me. Clive. You can take mine without my company, as that seems not to please you. Miss N. Your company is sometimes very pleasant, when you please. Sometimes, as last night for instance, when you are particularly lively. Clive. Last night, after moving Heaven and Earth to get an invitation to Madame de Brie, I say, Heaven and Earth, that is a French phrase. I arrived there. I find Miss Newcomb engaged for almost every dance, waltzing with Monsieur de Clingespore, galloping with Count de Capri, galloping and waltzing with the most noble, the Marquis of Farentauche.
She will scarce speak to me during the evening, and when I wait till midnight, her grandmama whisks her home, and I am left alone for my pains. Lady Q is in one of her high moods. And the only words Chikon descends to say to me are, Oh, I thought you would return to London, with which she turns her venerable back on me. Miss N, a fortnight ago you said you were going to London. You said the copies you were about here would not take you another week, and that was three weeks since. Clive, it were best I had gone. Miss N, if you think so. I cannot but think so, Clive. Why do I stay and hover about you, and follow, you know? I follow you? Can I live on a smile vouchsafe twice a week, and no brighter than you give it to all the world?
What do I get but to hear your beauty praised, and to see you, night after night, happy and smiling and triumphant, the partner of other men? Does it add zest to your triumph to think that I behold it? I believe you would like a crowd of us to pursue you, Miss N. To pursue me, and if they find me alone, by chance to compliment me with such speeches as you make. That would be pleasure indeed. Answer me here in return, Clive. Have I ever disguised from any of my friends the regard I have for you? Why should I? Have not I taken your part when you were maligned? In former days when, when Lord Q asked me, as he had a right to do then, I said it was as a brother, I held you, and always would. If I have been wrong, it has been for two or three times in seeing you at all, or seeing you thus, in letting you speak to me as you do, injure me as you do.
Do you think I have not hard enough words said to me about you, but that you must attack me, too, in turn? Last night only, because you were at the ball. It was very, very wrong of me to tell you I was going there. As we went home, Lady Q, go, sir. I never thought you would have seen me in this humiliation. Clive. Is it possible that I should have made Ethel Newcomb shed tears? Oh, dry them! Dry them! Forgive me, Ethel, forgive me. I have no right to jealousy or to reproach you. I know that. If others admire you, surely I ought to know that they, they do but as I do. I should be proud, not angry, that they admire my Ethel, my sister, if you can be no more. Ethel, I will be that always. Whatever harsh things you think or say of me, there, sir, I am not going to be so foolish as to cry again.
Have you been studying very hard? Are your pictures good at the exhibition? I like you with your moustachios best, and order you not to cut them off again. The young men here wear them. I hardly knew Charles Beardsmore when he arrived from Berlin the other day, like a sapper and miner. His little sisters cried out, and were quite frightened by his apparition. Why are you not in diplomacy? That day at Brighton, when Lord Farentosh asked whether you were in the army, I thought to myself, why is he not? Clive, a man in the army may pretend to anything, n'est-ce pas? He wears a lovely uniform. He may be a general, a KCB, a Viscount, an Earl. He may be valiant in arms and wanting a leg, like the lover in the song.
It is peacetime, you say, so much the worst career for a soldier. My father would not have me, he said, forever dangling in barracks or smoking in country billiard rooms. I have no taste for law, and as for diplomacy, I have no relations in the cabinet and no uncles in the house of peers. Could my uncle Who is in Parliament helped me much, do you think? Or would he, if he could? Or Barnes, his noble son and heir, after him? Ethel, musing. Barnes would not, perhaps, but Papa might even still, and you have friends who are fond of you. Clive, no, no one can help me, and my art, Ethel, is not only my choice and my love, but my honor, too. I shall never distinguish myself in it. I may take smart likenesses, but that is all.
I am not fit to grind my friend Ridley's colors for him, nor would my father, who loves his own profession so, make a good general probably. He always says so. I thought better of myself when I began as a boy, and was a conceited youngster, expecting to carry it all before me. But as I walked the Vatican and looked at Raphael and at the great Michael, I knew I was but a poor little creature, and in contemplating his genius, shrunk up till I felt myself as small as a man looks under the dome of St. Peter's. Why should I wish to have a great genius? Yes, there is one reason why I should like to have it, Ethel, and that is Clive. To give it to you if it pleased you, Ethel. But I might wish for the rock's egg.
There is no way of robbing the bird. I must take a humble place, and you want a brilliant one. A brilliant one. Oh, Ethel, what a standard we folks measure fame by. Do you have your name in the morning post, and to go to three balls every night? Do you have your dress described as the drawing room? And your arrival from a round of visits in the country as your townhouse and the entertainment of the marchioness of Farron Ethel. Sir, if you please, no calling names. Clive, I wonder at it, for you are in the world, and you love the world, whatever you may say, and I wonder that one of your strength of mind should so care for it. I think my simple old father is much finer than all your grandees, his single-mindedness more lofty than all their bowing and haughtiness and scheming.
What are you thinking of as you stand in that pretty attitude, like Menonsign, with your finger on your chin? Ethel. Menonsign? Who was she? I think I like you best when you are quiet and gentle, and not when you are flaming out and sarcastic, sir. And so you think you will never be a famous painter? They are quite in society here. I was so pleased, because two of them dined at the Tuileries when Grandmama was there, and she mistook one, who was covered all over with crosses for an ambassador, I believe, till the queen called him Monsieur Delaroche. She says there is no knowing people in this country, and do you think you will never be able to paint as well as Monsieur Delaroche? Clive. No. Never, Ethel.
And, and, you will never give up painting? Clive. No. Never. That would be like leaving your friend who was poor, or deserting your mistress because you were disappointed about her money. They do those things in the great world, Ethel. Ethel. With a sigh. Yes, Clive. If it is so false and base and hollow, this great world, if its aims are so mean, its success is so paltry, the sacrifices it asks of you so degrading, the pleasures it gives you so wearisome, shameful even, why does Ethel Newcomb cling to it? Will you be fairer, dear, with any other name than your own? Will you be happier? After a month, at bearing a great title, with a man whom you can't esteem, tied forever to you, to be the father of Ethel's children, and the lord and master of her life and actions.
The proudest woman in the world consents to bend herself to this ignominy, and own that a coronet is a bribe sufficient for her honor. What is the end of a Christian life, Ethel? A girl's pure nurture? It can't be this. Last week, as we walked in the garden here and heard the nuns singing in their chapel, you said how hard it was that poor women should be imprisoned so, and were thankful that in England we had abolished that slavery. Then you cast your eyes to the ground and mused as you paced the walk and thought, I know, that perhaps their lot was better than some others. Ethel. Yes, I did. I was thinking that almost all women are made slaves one way or other, and that these poor nuns, perhaps, were better off than we are.
Clive. I never will quarrel with nun or matron for following her vocation. But for our women, who are free, why should they rebel against nature, shut their hearts up, sell their lives for rank and money, and forego the most precious right of their liberty? Look, Ethel dear, I love you so, that if I thought another had your heart, an honest man, a loyal gentleman like, like him of last year even, I think I could go back with the God bless you and take to my pictures again and work on in my own humble way. You seem like a queen to me somehow, and I am but a poor, humble fellow, who might be happy, I think, if you were. In those walls where I have seen you surrounded by those brilliant young men, noble and wealthy, admirers like me, I have often thought, how could I aspire to such a creature, and ask her to forgo a palace to share the crust of a poor painter?
Ethel. You spoke quite scornfully of palaces just now, Clive. I won't say a word about that. The regard would you express for me? I think you have it. Indeed, I do. But it were best not said, Clive. Best for me, perhaps, not to own that I know it. In your speeches, my poor boy, and you will please not to make any more, or I never can see you to speak to you again. Never. You forgot one part of a girl's duty. Obedience to her parents. They would never agree to my marrying anyone below, anyone whose union would not be advantageous in a worldly point of view. I never would give such pain to the poor father, or to the kind soul who never said a harsh word to me since I was born. My grandmama is kind, too, in her way.
I came to her of my own free will, when she said she would leave me her fortune. Do you think it was for myself alone that I was glad? My father's passion was to make an estate, and all my brothers and sisters will be but slenderly portioned. Lady Q said she would help them if I came to her, and it is the welfare of those little people that depends upon me, Clive. Now, do you see, brother, why you must speak to me so no more? There is the carriage. God bless you, dear Clive. Clive sees the carriage drive away after Miss Newcomb has entered it without once looking up to the window where he stands. When it is gone, he goes to the opposite windows of the salon, which are open, towards the garden.
The chapel music begins to play from the convent next door. As he hears it, he sinks down, his head in his hands. And to Madame de Florac. She goes to him with anxious looks. What hast thou, my child? Hast thou spoken? Clive, very steadily. Yes. Madame de F., and she loves thee? I know she loves thee. Clive, you hear the organ of the convent? Madame de F., got to? Clive, I might as well hope to marry one of the sisters of yonder convent, dear lady. He sinks down again. And she kisses him. Clive. I never had a mother, but you seem like one. Madame de F. Mon fils, oh mon fils.
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48 48 - Chapter 48: In which Benedick is a Married Man 30:24
We have all heard of the dying French Duchess. Who viewed her coming to solution and subsequent fate so easily, because she said she was sure that Heaven must deal politely with a person of her quality. I suppose Lady Q had some notions regarding people of rank. Her long-suffering towards them was extreme. In fact, they were vices which the old lady thought pardonable and even natural. Any young nobleman of high station, which she never would have excused in persons of vulgar condition. Her ladyship's little knot of associates and scandal-bearers, elderly roues and ladies of the world, whose business it was to know all sorts of noble intrigues and exalted tittle-tattle, what was happening among the devotees in the exile court at Framsdorf.
What among the Citizen-Princes of the Tuileries? Who was reigning favorite of the Queen Mother at Aranjus? Who was smitten with whom at Vienna or Naples? And the last particulars of the chronique Scandalousis of Paris and London? Lady Q., I say, must have been perfectly aware of my Lord Ferentosh's amusements, associates, and manner of life. And yet she never, for one moment, exhibited any anger or dislike towards that nobleman. Her amiable heart was so full of kindness and forgiveness towards the young prodigal, that, even without any repentance on his part, she was ready to take him to her old arms, and give him her venerable benediction. Pathetic sweetness of nature, charming tenderness of disposition, With all his faults and wickedness, his follies and his selfishness, there was no moment when Lady Q would not have received the young lord, and endowed him with the hand of her darling Ethel.
But the hopes which this fond, forgiving creature had nurtured for one season, and carried on so resolutely to the next, were destined to be disappointed yet a second time, by a most provoking event, Which occurred in the Newcomb family. Ethel was called away suddenly from Paris by her father's third and last paralytic seizure. When she reached her home, Sir Brian could not recognize her. A few hours after her arrival, all the vanities of the world were over for him, and Sir Barnes Newcomb, baronet, reigned in his stead. The day after Sir Brian was laid in his vault at Newcomb, a letter appeared in the local papers addressed to the independent electors of that borough, in which his orphan son, feelingly alluding to the virtue, the services, and the political principles of the deceased, offered himself as a candidate for the seat in Parliament now vacant.
Sir Barnes announced that he should speedily pay his respects in person to the friends and supporters of his lamented father. That he was a staunch friend of our admirable constitution need not be said. That he was a firm but conscientious upholder of our Protestant religion. All who knew Barnes Newcomb must be aware. That he would do his utmost to advance the interests of this great agricultural, this great manufacturing county and borough. We may be sure he avowed, as that he would be, if returned to represent Newcomb in Parliament, the advocate of every rational reform, the unhesitating opponent of every reckless innovation. In fine, Barnes Newcomb's manifesto to the electors of Newcomb was as authentic a document and gave him credit for his many public virtues as that slab over poor Bryan's bones in the chancel of Newcomb Church, which commemorated the good qualities of the defunct and the grief of his heir.
In spite of the virtues, personal and inherited, of Barnes, his seat for Newcomb was not got without a contest. The dissenting interest in the respectable liberals of the borough wished to set up Samuel Higg, Esquire, against Sir Barnes Newcomb. And now it was that Barnes' civilities of the previous year, aided by Madame de Montcontour's influence over her brother, bore their fruit. Mr. Higg declined to stand against Sir Barnes Newcomb. Although Higg's political principles were by no means those of the Honorable Baronet, and the candidate from London, whom the Newcomb extreme radicals set up against Barnes, was nowhere on the pole when the day of election came. Sir Barnes had the desire of his heart.
And within two months after his father's demise, he stayed in Parliament as member for Newcomb. The bulk of the late baronet's property descended, of course, to his eldest son, who grumbled, nevertheless, at the provision made for his brothers and sisters, and that the townhouse should have been left to Lady Anne, who was too poor to inhabit it. But Park Lane is the best situation in London, and Lady Anne's means were greatly improved by the annual produce of the house in Park Lane, which, as we all know, was occupied by a foreign minister for several subsequent seasons. Strange mutations of fortune. Old places, new faces. What Londoner does not see and speculate upon them every day? Celia's boudoir.
Who is dead with the daisies over her at Kensal Green, is now the chamber where Delia is consulting. Dr. Lowcock, where Julia's children are romping. Florio's dining tables have now Paulio's wine upon them. Callista, being a widow, and, to the surprise of everybody who knew Tremontrio, and enjoyed his famous dinners, left but very poorly off. Let's the house, and the rich chased and appropriate planned furniture by Dow Biggin, and the proceeds go to keep her little boys at Eaton. The next year, as Mr. Clive Newcomb rode by the once-familiar mansion, once the hatchment had been removed, announcing that there was, in Cielo Caius, for the late Sir Brian Newcomb, Bart. Alien faces looked from over the flowers in the balconies.
He got a card for an entertainment from the occupant of the mansion, H.E., the Bulgarian minister. And there was the same crowd in the reception room and on the stairs, the same grave men from Gunter's distributing the refreshments in the dining room, the same old Smee, R.A., always in the room where the edibles were. Cringing and flattering to the new occupants, and the same effigy of poor Sir Brian in his deputy lieutenant's uniform, looking blankly down from over the sideboard, at the feast which his successors were giving. A dreamy old ghost of a picture. Have you ever looked at those round George IV banqueting halls at Windsor? Their frames still hold them, but they smile ghostly smiles, and swagger in robes and velvets which are quite faint and faded.
Their crimson coats have a twilight tinge. The luster of their stars has twinkled out. They look as if they were about to flicker off the wall and retire to join their originals in limbo. Nearly three years had elapsed since the good colonel's departure for India. And during this time, certain changes had occurred in the lives of the principal actors and the writer of this history. As regards the latter, it must be stated that the dear old firm of Lamb Court had been dissolved, the junior member having contracted another partnership. The chronicler of these memoirs was a bachelor no longer. My wife and I had spent the winter at Rome. Favorite resort of young married couples, and had heard from the artist there Clive's name affectionately repeated, and many accounts of his sayings and doings, his merry supper parties, and the talents of young Ridley, his friend.
When we came to London in the spring, almost our first visit was to Clive's apartments in Charlotte Street, with him my wife delightedly went to give her hand to the young painter. But Clive no longer inhabited that quiet region. On driving to the house, we found a bright brass plate with the name of Mr. J.J. Ridley on the door, and it was J.J.'s hand which I shook, his other being engaged with a great palette and a sheaf of painting brushes. When we entered the well-known quarters, Clive's picture hung over the mantelpiece, where his father's head used to hang in our time. A careful and beautifully executed portrait of the lad in a velvet coat and a Roman hat, with that golden beard which was sacrificed to the exigencies of London fashion.
I showed Laura the likeness until she could become acquainted with the original. On her expressing her delight at the picture, the painter was pleased to say, in his modest, blushing way, That he would be glad to execute my wife's portrait, too. Nor, as I think, could any artist find a subject more pleasing. After admiring others of Mr. Ridley's works, our talk naturally reverted to his predecessor. Clive had migrated to much more splendid quarters. Had he not heard, he had become a rich man, a man of fashion. I fear he is very lazy about the art, said J.J., with regret on his countenance, though I begged and prayed him to be faithful to his profession. He would have done very well in it, in portrait painting especially.
Look here, and here, and here, said Ridley, producing fine vigorous sketches of Clive's. He had the art of seizing the likeness, and of making all his people look like gentlemen, too. He was improving every day when this abominable bank came in the way and stopped him. What bank? I did not know the new Indian bank of which the colonel was a director. Then, of course, I was aware that the mercantile affair in question was the Bundeklund Bank, about which the colonel had written to me from India more than a year since, announcing that fortunes were to be made by it. And that he had reserved cheers for me in the company. Laura admired all Clive's sketches, which his affectionate brother artists showed to her, with the exception of one representing the reader's humble servant, which Mrs.
Pendennis considered by no means did justice to the original, bidding adieu to the kind J.J., and leaving him to pursue his art. In that silent, serious way in which he dearly labored at it, we drove to Fitzroy Square hard by, where I was not displeased to show the good old hospitable James Binney, the young lady who bore my name. But here, too, we were disappointed. Placards wafered in the windows, announced that the old house was to let. The woman who kept it brought a card in Mrs. McKenzie's Frank handwriting, announcing Mr. James Binney's address was post-prestant, pow, in the Pyrenees, and that his London agents were Mrs. So-and-so. The woman said she believed the gentleman had been unwell.
The house, too, looked very pale, dismal, and disordered. We drove away from the door, grieving to think that ill health or any other misfortunes had befallen good old James. Mrs. Pendennis drove back to our lodgings, Brixham's in German Street, while I sped to the city, having business in that quarter. It has been said that I kept a small account with Hobson brothers, to whose bank I went, and entered the parlor with that repudiation which most poor men feel on presenting themselves before city magnates and capitalists. Mr. Hobson Newcomb shook hands most jovially and good-naturedly. Congratulated me on my marriage, and so forth, and presently Sir Barnes Newcomb made his appearance, still wearing his mourning for his deceased father.
Nothing could be more kind, pleasant, and cordial than Sir Barnes's manner. He seemed to know well about my affairs, complimented me on every kind of good fortune, and heard that I had canvassed the borough in which I lived. Hope sincerely to see me in Parliament, and on the right side. Was most anxious to become acquainted with Mrs. Pendennis, of whom Lady Rockminster said all sorts of kind things, and asked for our dress, in order that Lady Clara Newcomb might have the pleasure of calling on my wife. This ceremony was performed soon afterwards, and an invitation to dinner from Sir Barnes and Lady Clara Newcomb speedily followed it. Sir Barnes Newcomb Bart, M.P., I need not say, no longer inhabited the small house which he had occupied immediately after his marriage, but dwelt in a much more spacious mansion in Bulgravia, where he entertained his friends.
Now that he had come into his kingdom, I must say that Barnes was by no means so insufferable as in the days of his bachelorhood. He had sown his wild oats and spoke with regret and reserve at that season of his moral culture. He was grave, sarcastic, statesmanlike, did not try to conceal his baldness, as he used before his father's death. By bringing lean wisps of hair over his forehead, from the back of his head, talked a great deal about the house, was assiduous in his attendance there and in the city, and conciliating with all the world. It seemed as if we were all his constituents, and though his efforts to make himself agreeable were rather apparent, the effects succeeded pretty well. We met Mr.
and Mrs. Hobson Newcomb, and Clive, and Miss Ethel, looking beautiful in her black robes. It was a family party, so Barnes said, giving us to understand, with a decorous solemnity in face and voice, that no large parties as yet could be received in that house of mourning. To this party was added, rather to my surprise, by Lord Highgate, who under the super-K of Jack Belzeis has been presented to the reader of this history. Lord Highgate gave Lady Clara his arm to dinner, but went and took a place next to Miss Newcomb, on the other side of her, and immediately by Lady Clara being reserved for a guest who had not, as yet, made his appearance. Lord Highgate's attentions to his neighbor, his laughing and talking were incessant, so much so that Clive, from his end of the table, scowled in wrath at Jack Belsize's assiduities.
It was evident that the youth, though hopeless, was still jealous and in love with his charming cousin. Barnes Newcomb was most kind to all his guests, from Aunt Hobson to your humble servant. There was not one, but the master of the house had an agreeable word for him, even for his cousin Samuel Newcomb, a gawky youth with an eruptive countenance. Barnes had appropriate words of conversation and talked about King's College, of which the lad was an ornament with the utmost affability. He complimented that institution and young Samuel, and by that shot, knocked not only over Sam, but his mama, too. He talked to Uncle Hobson about his crops, to Clive about his pictures, to me about the great effect which a certain article in the Pell-Mell Gazette had produced in the House, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer was perfectly livid with fury.
And Lord John, bursting out laughing at the attack. In fact, nothing could be more amiable than our host on this day. Lady Clara was very pretty, grown a little stouter since her marriage. The change only became her. She was a little silent, but then she had Uncle Hobson on her left-hand side. Between whom, and her ladyship, there could not be much in common, and the place at the right hand was still vacant. The person with whom she talked most freely was Clive, who had made a beautiful drawing of her and her little girl, for which the mother and the father, too, as it appeared, were very grateful. But it caused this change in Barnes's behavior. Our particular merits or his own private reform.
In the two years over which this narrative has had to run, in the course of his many chapters, the writer had inherited a property so small that it could not occasion a banker's civility. And I put down Sir Barnes Newcomb's politeness to a sheer desire to be well with me. But with Lord Highgate and Clive, the case was different, as you must now hear. Lord Highgate, having succeeded to his father's title and fortune, had paid every shilling of his debts, and had sowed his wild oats to the very last corn. His lordship's account at Hobson Brothers was very large. Painful events of three years' date, let us hope, were forgotten. Gentlemen cannot go on being in love and despairing, and quarreling forever.
When he came into his funds, Highgate behaved with uncommon kindness to Rooster, who was always straightened for money. And when the late Lord Dorking died, and Rooster succeeded to him, there was a meeting at Chanticleer between Highgate and Barnes-Newcomb and his wife, which went off very comfortably. At Chanticleer, the dowager Lady Q and Miss Newcomb were also staying when Lord Highgate announced his prodigious admiration for the young lady, and, it was said, corrected Farentosh as a low-minded, foul-tongued young cub for daring to speak disrespectfully of her. Nevertheless, vous conservez, when a man of the Marquis' rank was supposed to look with the eyes of admiration upon a young lady, Lord Highgate would not think of spoiling sport, and he left Chanticleer declaring that he was always destined to be unlucky in love.
When old Lady Q was obliged to go to Vichy for her lumbago, Highgate said to Barnes, Do ask your charming sister to come to you in London. She will bore herself to death with the old woman at Vichy, or with her mother at Rugby, where the Lady Anne had gone to get her boys educated. And accordingly, Miss Newcomb came on a visit to her brother and sister, at whose house we have just had the honor of seeing her. When Rooster took his seat in the House of Lords, he was introduced by Highgate and Q. As Highgate had been introduced by Q previously. Thus these three gentlemen all rode in gold coaches. Had all got coronets on their heads. As you will, my respected young friend, if you are the eldest son of a peer who dies before you, and now they were rich, they were all going to be very good boys, let us hope.
Q, we know, married one of the Dorking family. That second Lady Henrietta Poulain, whom we described as frisking about at Baden, and not in the least afraid of him. How little the reader knew, to whom we introduced the girl in that chatty offhand way, that one day the young creature would be a countess. But we knew it all the while, and when she was walking about with the governess, or romping with her sisters, and when she had dinner at one o'clock. And when she wore a pinafore, very likely, we secretly respected her as the future Countess of Q, and mother of the Viscount Wollum. Lord Q was very happy with his bride, and very good to her. He took Lady Q to Paris for a marriage trip. But they lived almost all together at Kewbury afterwards, where his lordship sowed tame oats now after his wild ones, and became one of the most active farmers of his county.
He and the Newcombs were not very intimate friends, for Lord Kew was heard to say that he disliked Barnes more after his marriage than before. And the two sisters, Lady Clara and Lady Q, had a quarrel on one occasion, when the latter visited London just before the dinner at which we had just assisted, nay, at which we were just assisting, took place. A quarrel about Highgate's attentions to Ethel, very likely. Q was dragged into it, and hot words passed between him and Jack Bell's eyes. And Jack did not go down to Q-Berry afterward, though Q's little boy was christened after him. All these interesting details about people of the very highest rank, we are supposed to whisper in the reader's ear as we are sitting at a Belgravian dinner table.
My dear Barmecide friend, isn't it pleasant to be in such fine company? And now we must tell how it is that Clive Newcomb Esquire, whose eyes are flashing fire across the flowers at the table, at Lord Highgate, who is making himself so agreeable to Miss Ethel. Now we must tell how it is that Clive and his cousin Barnes have grown to be friends again. The Bundekund Bank, which The BB had been established for four years, had now grown to be one of the most flourishing commercial institutions in Bengal. Founded, as the prospectus announced, at a time when all private credit was shaken by the failure of the great agency houses, of which the downfall had carried dismay and ruin throughout the presidency, the BB had been established on the only sound principle of commercial prosperity.
That is, association. The native capitalists, headed by the great firm of Rum & Lal and Company of Calcutta, had largely embarked in the BB, and the officers of the two services in the European Mercantile Body of Calcutta had been invited to take shares in an institution which, to merchants, Native and English, civilian and military men, was alike advantageous and indispensable. How many young men of the latter's services had been crippled for life by the ruinous cost of agencies, of which the profits to the agents themselves were so enormous? The shareholders of the BB were their own agents, and the greatest capitalists in India, as well as the youngest ensign in the service, might invest at the largest and safest premium and borrow at the smallest interest by becoming, according to his means, a shareholder in the BB.
Their correspondence were established in each presidency and in every chief city of India. As well as at Sydney, Singapore, Canton, and of course, London. With China, they did an immense opium trade, of which the profits were so great that it was only in private sittings of the BB Managing Committee that the details and accounts of these operations could be brought forward. Otherwise, the books of the bank were open to every shareholder. And the ensign, or the young civil servant, was at liberty at any time to inspect his own private account as well as the common ledger. With New South Wales, they carried on a vast trade in wool, supplying that great colony with goods, which their London agents enabled them to purchase in such a way as to give them the command of the market, as if to add to their prosperity.
Copper mines were discovered on lands in the occupation of the B Banking Company, which gave the most astonishing returns, and throughout the vast territories of British India, through the great native firm of Rum and Lal and Company, the Bundelkant Banking Company. At possession of the native markets, the order from Birmingham for idols alone, made with their copper and paid in their wool, was enough to make the low church party in England cry out, and a debate upon this subject actually took place in the House of Commons, of which the effect was to send up the shares of the Bundlekin Banking Company very considerably upon the London Exchange. The fifth half-yearly dividend was announced at 12.25% of the paid-up capital.
The accounts from the copper mine sent the dividend up to a still greater height and carried the shares to an extraordinary premium. In the third year of the concern, the House of Hobbs and Brothers of London became the agents of the Bundlekin Banking Company of India, and amongst our friends, James Binney, who had prudently held out for some time, and Clive Newcomb, Esquire, became shareholders, Clive's good father having paid the first installments of the land shares up in Calcutta. And invested every rupee he could himself command in this enterprise. When Hobson brothers joined it, no wonder James Binney was convinced. Clive's friend, the Frenchman, and through that connection the House of Higg, of Newcomb and Manchester, entered into the affair, and amongst the minor contributors in England we may mention Miss Cann, who took a little fifty-pound note share, and dear old Miss Honeyman.
And J.J., and his father, Ridley, who brought a small bag of saving, all knowing that their colonel, who was eager that his friend should participate in his good fortune, would never lead them wrong. Declive surprised Mrs. McKenzie, between whom and himself there was a considerable coolness. Came to his chambers, and with a solemn injunction that the matter between them should be quite private, requested him to purchase fifteen hundred pounds worth of Bunduken shares for her and her darling girls, which he did, astonished to find the thrifty widow in possession of so much money. Had Mr. Pendennis's mind not been bent at this moment on quite other subjects, he might have increased his own fortune by the Bundelkin Bank speculation.
But in these two years, I was engaged in matrimonial affairs, having Clive Newcomb Esquire as my groomsman on a certain interesting occasion. When we returned from our tour abroad, the Indian bag shares were so very high that I did not care to purchase, though I found an affectionate letter from our good colonel, enjoining me to make my fortune, awaiting me at the agent's, and my wife received a pair of beautiful cashmere shawls from the same kind friend.
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49 49 - Chapter 49: Contains at least six more Courses and two Desserts 26:11
The Newcomes by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 49 contains at least six more courses and two desserts. The banker's dinner party over, we returned to our apartments, having dropped Major Pendennis at his lodgings, and there, as the custom is amongst most friendly married couples, talked over the company and the dinner. I thought my wife would naturally have liked Sir Barnes Newcomb, who was very attentive to her, took her to dinner as the bride, and talked ceaselessly to her during the whole entertainment. Laura said, no. She did not know why. Could there be any better reason? There was a tone about Sir Barnes Newcomb she did not like, especially in his manner to women. I remarked that he spoke sharply and in a sneering manner to his wife, and treated one or two remarks which he made as if she were an idiot.
Mrs. Pendennis flung up her head as much as to say, and so she is. Mr. Pendennis. What? The wife, too, my dear Laura? I should have thought such a pretty simple, innocent young woman, with just enough good looks to make her past muster, who was very well-bred and not brilliant at all. I should have thought such a one might have secured a sister's approbation. Mrs. Pendennis. You fancy we are all jealous of one another. No protests of ours can take that notion out of your heads. My dear Penn, I do not intend to try. We are not jealous of mediocrity. We are not patient of it. I dare say we are angry because we see men admire it so. You gentlemen, who pretend to be our betters, Give yourself such airs of protection, and profess such a lofty superiority over us.
Prove it by quitting the cleverest woman in the room for the purse-pair of bright eyes and dimpled cheeks that enter. It was those charms which attracted you in Lady Clara, sir. Pendennis. I think she is very pretty and very innocent and artless. Mrs. P. Not very pretty. And perhaps not so very artless. Pen Dennis. How can you tell, you wicked woman? Are you such a profound deceiver yourself that you can instantly detect artifice in others? Oh, Laura. Mrs. P. We can detect all sorts of things. The inferior animals have instincts, you know. I must say my wife is always very satirical upon this point of the relative rank of the sexes. One thing I am sure of is that she is not happy, and, oh, Pen, that she does not care much for her little girl.
Pen Dennis. How do you know that, my dear? Mrs. P. We went upstairs to see the child after dinner. It was at my wish. The mother did not offer to go. The child was awake and crying. Lady Clara did not offer to take it. Ethel, Miss Newcomb, took it, rather to my surprise, for she seems very haughty, and the nurse, who I suppose was at supper, came running up at the noise, and then the poor little thing was quiet.
I remember we heard the music as the dining room door was open, and Newcomb said, That is what you will have to expect, Pendennis. Mrs. P. Hush, sir. If my baby cries, I think you must expect me to run out of the room. I like Miss Newcomb after seeing her with the poor little thing. She looked so handsome as she walked with it. I longed to have it myself. Pendennis.
Mrs. P. Don't be silly. What a dreadful, dreadful place this great world of yours is, Arthur, where husbands do not seem to care for their wives, where mothers do not love their children, where children love their nurses best, where men talk what they call gallantry. Pandennis. What? Mrs. P. Yes, such as that dreary, languid, pale, bald, cadaverous leery man whispered to me. Oh, how I dislike him. I am sure he is unkind to his wife. I am sure he has a bad temper. And if there is any excuse for—Pandettis. For what? Mrs. P., for nothing. But you heard yourself that he had a bad temper, and spoke sneeringly to his wife. What could make her marry him? Pandennis. Money, and the desire of Papa and Mama.
For the same reason Clive's flame, poor Miss Newcomb, was brought out today. That vacant seat at her side was for Lord Farentosh, who did not come, and the Marquis not being present, the Baron took his innings. Did you not see how tender he was to her? And how fierce poor Clive looked. Mrs. P. Lord Highgate was very attentive to Miss Newcomb, was he? Penn Dennis. And some years ago, Lord Highgate was breaking his heart about whom, do you think? About Lady Clara Poulain, our hostess of last night. He was Jack Belsize then, a younger son, plunged over head and ears in debt. And of course there could be no marriage. Clive was present at Biden when a terrible scene took place, and carried off poor Jack to Switzerland and Italy, where he remained till his father died, and he came into the title in which he rejoices.
And now he is off with the old love, Laura, and on with the new. Why do you look at me so? Are you thinking that other people have been in love two or three times, too? Mrs. P. I am thinking that I should not like to live in London, Arthur. And this was all that Mrs. Laura could be brought to say. When this young woman chooses to be silent, there is no power that can extract a word from her. It is true that she is generally in the right, but that is only the most aggravating. Indeed, what can be more provoking, after a dispute with your wife, than to find it is you? And not she who has been in the wrong.
Sir Barnes Newcomb politely caused us to understand that the entertainment of which we had just partaken was given in honor of the bride. Clive must needs not be outdone in hospitality, and invited us and others to a fine feast at the Star and Garter at Richmond, where Mrs. Pendennis was placed at his right hand. I smile as I think how much dining has been already commemorated in these voracious pages. But the story is an everyday record, and does not dining form a certain part of the pleasure and business of every day? It is at that pleasant hour that our set has the privilege of meeting the other. The morning man and woman alike devote to business, or pass mainly in the company of their own kind.
John has his office, Jane her household, her nursery, her milliner, her daughters and their masters. In the country, he has his hunting, his fishing, his farming, his letters. She, her schools, her poor, her garden, or whatnot. Parted through the shining hours and improving them, let us trust. We come together toward sunset only. We make merry and amuse ourselves. We chat with our pretty neighbor, or survey the young one's sporting. We make love and are jealous. We dance, or obsequiously turn over the leaves of Cecilia's music book. We play whist, or go to sleep in the armchair according to our ages and conditions. Snooze gently in thy armchair, thou easy bald head. Play your whisk, or read your novel, or talk scandal over your work, ye worthy dowagers and fogies.
Meanwhile, the young ones frisk about, or dance, or sing, or laugh, or whisper behind curtains and moonlit windows, or shirk away into the garden, and come back smelling of cigars, nature having made them so to do. Nature at this time irresistibly impelled Clive Newcomb towards love-making. It was pairing season with him. Mr. Clive was now some three and twenty years old. Enough has been said about his good looks, which were in truth sufficient to make him a match for the young lady on whom he had set his heart, and from whom, during this entertainment which he gave to my wife, he could never keep his eyes away for three minutes. Laura's did not need to be so keen as they were in order to see what poor Clive's condition was.
She did not in the least grudge the young fellows in attention to herself, or feel hurt that he did not seem to listen when she spoke. She conversed with J.J., her neighbor, who was very modest and agreeable. While her husband, not so well pleased, had Mrs. Hobson look for his partner during the chief part of the entertainment. Mrs. Hobson and Lady Clara were the matrons who gave the sanction of their presence to this bachelor party. Neither of their husbands could come to Clive's little fete. Had they not the city and the House of Commons to attend? My uncle. Major Pendennis was another of the guests, who for his part found the party was what you young fellows call very slow. Dreading Mrs. Hobson and her powers of conversation, the old gentleman nimbly skipped out of her neighborhood and fell by the side of Lord Highgate, to whom the Major was inclined to make himself very pleasant.
But Lord Highgate's broad back was turned upon his neighbor, who was forced to tell stories to Captain Crackthorpe, which had amused dukes and marquises in former days, and was surely quite good enough for any baron in this realm. Lord Highgate's sweet upon Labelle Newcomb is he," said the testy major afterwards. He seemed to me to talk to Lady Clara the whole time. When I awoke in the garden after dinner, as Mrs. Hobson was telling one of her confounded long stories, I found her audience was diminished to one. Crackthorpe, Lord Highgate, and Lady Clara, we had all been sitting there when the banker is cut in, in the midst of a very good story I was telling them, which entertained them very much, and never ceased talking till I fell off into a doze.
When I roused myself, be gad, she was still going on. Crackthorpe was off, smoking a cigar on the terrace. My Lord and Lady Clara were nowhere, and you four, with the little painter, were chatting cozily in another arbor. Behaved himself very well, the little painter. Doost a good dinner Alice gave us. But as for Highgate, being au swan, with La Belle Barquerie, Trust me, my boy, he is, upon my word, my dear, it seemed to me his thoughts were quite another way. To be sure, Lady Clara is Belle Banquière, too, now. He, he, he. How could he say he had no carriage to go home in? He came down in Crackthorpe's cab. Who passed us just now, driving back young what-do-you-call-the-painter? Thus did the major discourse, as we returned towards the city.
I could see in the open carriage which followed us, Lady Clara Newcombs, Lord Highgate's White Hat, by Clive's on the back seat. Laura looked at her husband. The same thought may have crossed their minds, though neither uttered it. But although Sir Barnes and Lady Clara Newcomb offered us other civilities during our stay in London, no inducements could induce Laura to accept the preferred friendship of that lady. When Lady Clara called, my wife was not at home. When she invited us, Laura pleaded engagements. At first she bestowed on Miss Newcomb, too, a share of this haughty dislike. And rejected the advances which that young lady, who professed to like my wife very much, made towards an intimacy.
When I appealed to her, for Newcomb's house was, after all, a very pleasant one, and you met the best people there. My wife looked at me with an expression of something like scorn and said, Why don't I like Miss Newcomb? Of course, because I am jealous of her. All women you know, Arthur, are jealous of such beauties. I could get for a long while no better explanation than these sneers, from my wife's antiphathy towards this branch of the Newcomb family, but an event presently came which silenced my remonstrances and showed to me that Laura had judged Barnes and his wife only too well. Poor Mrs. Hobson Newcomb had reason to be sulky at the neglect which all the Richmond parties showed her. For nobody, not even Major Pendennis, as we have seen, would listen to her intellectual conversation.
Nobody, not even Lord Highgate, would drive back to town in her carriage, though the vehicle was large and empty, and Lady Clarice Barouche In which his lordship chose to take a place, had already three occupants within it. But in spite of these rebuffs and disappointments, the virtuous lady of Briarstone Square was bent upon being good-natured and hospitable. And I have to record, in the present chapter, yet one more feast of which Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis partook at the expense of the most respectable Newcomb family. Although Mrs. Laura here also appeared, and had the place of honor in her character of bride, I am bound to own my opinion that Mrs. Hobson only made us the pretext of her party, and that in reality it was given to persons of a much more exalted rank.
We were the first to arrive, our good old Major, the most punctual of men, bearing us company. Our hostess was arrayed in unusual state and splendor. Her fat neck was ornamented with jewels, rich bracelets decorated her arms, and this Briarstone Square Cornelia had likewise her family jewels distributed round her. Priceless male and female. Newcomb gems, from the King's college youth, with whom we have made a brief acquaintance, and his eldest sister, now entering into the world. Down to the last little ornament of the nursery, in a prodigious new sash, with ringlets hot and crisp from the tongs of a marley-bone hairdresser. We had seen the cherub faces of some of these darlings, pressed against the drawing-room windows as our carriage drove up to the door, when, after a few minutes' conversation, another vehicle arrived.
Away they dashed to the windows again. The innocent little dears crying out, He's the Marquis, and in sadder tones, No, it isn't the Marquis, by which artless expressions they showed how eager they were to behold an expected guest of a rank only inferior to dukes in this great empire.
Putting two and two together, as the saying is, it was not difficult for me to guess who the expected Marquis was. And indeed, the King College youth set that question at once to rest, by wagging his head at me, and winking his eye and saying, We expect Farentosh. Why, my dearest children, matronly virtue exclaimed, this anxiety to behold the young Marquis of Farentosh, whom we expect at our modest table, Mrs. Pendennis, today? Twice you have been at the window in your eagerness to look for him. Louisa, you silly child, do you imagine that his lordship will appear in his robes and coronet? Rodolph, you absurd boy, do you think that a Marquis is other than a man? I have never admired aught but intellect.
Mrs. Pendennis, that, let us be thankful, is the only true title to distinction in our country nowadays. Begad, sir, whispers the old major to me. Intellect may be a ducid fine thing, but in my opinion, a marker said, at eighteen or twenty thousand a year, I should say the Farentosh property, with the Glen Levitt estate and the Roy property in England, must be worth nineteen thousand a year, the very lowest figure. And I remember when this young man's father was only Tom Roy, of the 42nd, with no hope of succeeding to the title. And deucedly out at elbows, too. I say, what does the bankerist mean by chattering about intellect? Hang me. A Marquis is a Marquis. And Mrs. Newcomb knows it as well as I do.
My good major was growing old, and was not unnaturally a little testy at the manner in which his hostess received him. Truth to tell, she hardly took any notice of him and cut down a couple of the old gentleman's stories before he had been five minutes in the room. To our party presently comes the host in a flurried countenance, with a white waistcoat, holding in his hand an open letter, towards which his wife looks with some alarm. How'd you do, Lady Clara? How'd you do, Ethel? He says, saluting those ladies whom the second carriage had brought to us. Sir Barnes is not coming. That's one place vacant. That, Lady Clary, you won't mind. You see him at home. But here's a disappointment for you, Miss Newcomb.
Lord Farentosh can't come. At this, two of the children cry out, Oh, with such a melancholy accent that Miss Nocum and Lady Clara burst out laughing. Got a dreadful toothache, said Mr. Hobson. Here's his letter. Hang it. What a bore, cries Artless Young King's College. Why a bore, Samuel? A bore, as you call it for Lord Parentage, I grant. But do you suppose that the high and station are exempt from the ills of mortality? "'I know nothing more painful than a toothache,' exclaims a virtuous matron, using the words of philosophy, but showing the countenance of anger. "'Hang it. Why didn't he have it out?' says Samuel." Miss Ethel laughed. "'Lord Farentosh would not have that tooth out for the world, Samuel,' she cried gaily.
"'He keeps it on purpose, and it always aches when he does not want to go out to dinner.'" "'I know one humble family who will never ask him again,' Mrs. Hobson exclaims, rustling in all her silks and tapping her fan at her foot. The eclipse, however, passes off her countenance and light is restored, when at this moment, a cab having driven up during the period of darkness, the door is flung open and Lord Highgate is announced by a loud-voiced butler." My wife, being still the bride on this occasion, had the honor of being led to the dinner table by our banker and host, Lord Highgate, was reserved for Mrs. Hobson, who, in an engaging manner, requested poor Clive to conduct his cousin Maria to dinner, handing over Miss Ethel to another guest.
Our Major gave his arm to Lady Clara. And I perceived that my wife looked very grave as he passed the place where she sat, and seated Lady Clara in the next chair to that which Lord Highgate chanced to occupy. Feeling himself on vain, and the company being otherwise rather mum and silent, my uncle told a member of delightful anecdotes about the Beaumont of his time, about the Peninsular War, the Regent, Brummel, Lord Stain, P. Green Payne, and so forth. He said the evening was very pleasant, though some others of the party, as it appeared to me, scarcely seemed to think so. Clive had not a word for his cousin Maria, but looked across the table at Ethel at all dinner time. What could Ethel have to say to her partner, old Colonel Sir Donald McCraw?
"'Who gobbled and drank, as his wont is, and, if he had a remark to make, imparted it to Mrs. Hobson, at whose right hand he was sitting, and to whom, during the whole course or courses of the dinner, my Lord Highgate scarcely uttered one single word. His Lordship was whispering all the while into the ringlets of Lady Clara. They were talking a jargon which their hostess scarcely understood. Of people only known to her by her study of the peerage. When we joined the ladies after dinner, Lord Highgate again made his way towards Lady Clara, and added an order from her, as I thought, left her ladyship, and strove hard to engage in a conversation with Mrs. Newcomb. I hope he succeeded in smoothing the frowns in that round little face.
Mrs. Laura, I own, was as grave as a judge all the evening. Very grave even and reserved with my uncle when the hour for parting came and we took him home. He, he, said the old man, coughing and nodding his old head and laughing in his senile manner. When I saw him on the next day, that was a pleasant evening we had yesterday. Do sit pleasant. And I think my two neighbors seemed to be uncommonly pleased with each other. Not an amusing fellow, that young painter of yours, though he is good-looking enough, but there's no conversation in him. Do you think of giving a little dinner, Arthur, in return for these hospitalities? Greenwich, hey, or something of that sort. I'll go you half, sir, and we'll ask the young banker and bankeress, not yesterday's amphitryon, nor his wife, no, no hang it, but Barnes Newcomb is a devilish, clever, rising man, and moves in about as good society as any in London.
We'll ask him and Lady Clara and Highgate, and one or two more, and have a pleasant party. But to this proposal, when the old man communicated it to her in a very quiet, simple, artful way, Laura, with a flushing face, said, No, quite abruptly, and quitted the room, rustling in her silks and showing at once dignity and indignation. Not many more feasts was Arthur Pendennis Sr. to have in this world. Not many more great men was he to flatter, nor schemes to wink at, nor earthly pleasures to enjoy. His long days were well-nigh ended on his last couch, which Laura tended so affectionately. With his last breath almost, he faltered out to me, I had other views for you, my boy, and once hoped to see you in a higher position in life.
But I began to think now, Arthur, that I was wrong. And as for that girl, sir, I am sure she is an angel. May I not inscribe the words with a grateful heart. Blessed he, blessed though may be undeserving, who has the love of a good woman.
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50 50 - Chapter 50: Clive in New Quarters 22:04
V.
Clive in New Quarters My wife was much better pleased with Clive than with some of his relatives to whom I had presented her. His face carried a recommendation with it that few honest people could resist. He was always a welcome friend in our lodgings, and even our uncle, the Major, signified his approval of the lad as a young fellow of very good manners and feelings, who, if he chose to throw himself away and be a painter, was rich enough, no doubt, to follow his own caprices. Clive executed the capital head of Major Pendennis, which now hangs in our drawing room at Fair Oaks, and reminds me of that friend of my youth. Clive occupied ancient lofty chambers in Hanover Square now. He had furnished them with an antique manor, with hangings, cabinets, carved work, Venice glasses, Fine prints and watercolor sketches of good pictures by his own and other hands.
He had horses to ride, and a liberal purse full of paternal money. Many fine equipages drew up opposite to his chambers. Few artists had such luck as young Mr. Clive. And above his own chambers were other three which the young gentleman had hired, and where, says he, I hope he or... Very long, my dear old father, will be lodging with me. In another year, he says he thinks he will be able to come home, when the affairs of the bank are quite settled. You shake your head. Why? The shares are worth four times what we gave for them. We are men of fortune, Penn. I give you my word. You should see how much they make of me at Baines and Jolly's, and how civil they are to me at Hobson Brothers. I go into the city now and then, and see our manager, Mr.
Blackmore. He tells me such stories about indigo and wool and copper and sicca rupees, and company's rupees. I don't know anything about the business, but my father likes me to go and see Mr. Blackmore. Dear Cousin Barnes, it's forever asking me to dinner. I might call Lady Clara Clara if I liked, as Sam Newcomb does in Bryanstone Square. You can't think how kind they are to me there. My aunt reproaches me tenderly for not going there oftener. It's not very good fun dining in Bryanstone Square, is it? And she praises my cousin Maria to me. You should hear my aunt praise her. I have to take Maria down to dinner, to sit by the piano and listen to her songs in all languages. Do you know Maria can sing Hungarian and Polish, besides your common German, Spanish, and Italian?
Those I have at our other agents, Baines and Jollies, Baines that is in the Regent's Park. Where the girls are prettier and just as civil to me, as at Aunt Hobson's. And here Clive would amuse us by the accounts which he gave us, of the snares which the Mrs. Baines, those young sirens of Regent's Park, set for him, of the songs which they sang to enchant him, the albums in which they besought him to draw, the thousand winning ways which they employed to bring him into their cave in York Terrace. But neither Circe's smiles nor Calypso's blandishments had any effect on him. His ears were stopped to their music, and his eyes rendered dull to their charms by those of the flighty young enchantress with whom my wife had, of late, made acquaintance.
Capitalist though he was, our young fellow was still very affable. He forgot no old friends in his prosperity. And the lofty antique chambers would not unfrequently be lighted up at nights to receive F.B., and some of the old cronies of the haunt, and some of the Gandenscheits, who, if Clive had been of a nature that was to be spoiled by flattery, had certainly done mischief to the young man. Gandish himself, when Clive paid a visit to that illustrious artist's academy, received his former pupil as if the young fellow had been a sovereign prince almost, accompanied him to his horse, and would have held his stirrup as he mounted, whilst the beautiful daughters of the house waved a deuce to him from the parlour window.
To the young men assembled in his gander's studio, was never tired of talking about Clive. The professor would take occasion to inform them that he had been to visit his distinguished young friend, Mr. Newcomb, son of Colonel Newcomb, that, last evening, he had been present at an elegant entertainment at Mr. Newcomb's news apartments. Clive's drawings were hung up in Gandish's gallery and pointed out to visitors by the worthy professor. On one or two occasions, I was allowed to become a bachelor again. And participate in these jovial meetings. How guilty my coat was on my return home. How haughty the looks of the mistress of my house. How she bade Martha carry away the obnoxious garment. How grand F.B.
used to be as president of Clive's smoking party, where he laid down the law, talked the most talk, sang the jolliest song, and consumed the most drink of all the jolly talkers and drinkers. Clive's popularity rose prodigiously. Not only youngsters, but old practitioners of the fine arts lauded his talents. What a shame that his pictures were all refused this year at the Academy. Alfred Smee, Esquire, R.A., was indignant at their rejection, but J.J. confessed with a sigh, and Clive owned good-naturedly. That he had been neglecting his business, and that his pictures were not so good as those of two years before. I am afraid Mr. Clive went to too many balls and parties, to clubs and jovial entertainments, besides losing yet more time in that other pursuit we want of.
Meanwhile, J.J. went steadily on with his work. No day passed without a line, and fame was not very far off. Though this he heeded very little. And Art, his sole mistress, rewarded him for his steady and fond pursuit of her. Look at him, Clive would say with a sigh. Isn't he the mortal of all others, the most to be envied? He is so fond of his art that in all the world there is no attraction like it for him. He runs to his easel at sunrise, and sits before it, caressing his picture all day till nightfall. He takes leave of it, sadly, when dark comes, spends the night in a life academy, and begins next morning de capo. Of all the pieces of good fortune which can befall a man, is not this the greatest?
To have you desire, and never tire of it. I have been in such a rage with my own shortcomings that I have dashed my foot through the canvases and found I would smash my pallet and easel. Sometimes I succeed a little better in my work, and then it will happen for half an hour that I am pleased. But pleased at what? Pleased at drawing Mr. Muggins' head rather like Mr. Muggins? Why, a thousand fellows can do better. And when one day I reach my very best, yet thousands will be able to do better still. Ours is a trade for which nowadays there is no excuse, unless one can be great in it. And I feel I have not the stuff for that. Number 666. Portrait of Joseph Muggins, Esquire, Newcomb, Great George Street.
Number 979. Portrait of Mrs. Muggins, On Her Gray Pony. Number 579 Portrait of Joseph Muggins, Esquire's Dog, Toby, Newcomb. This is what I'm fit for. These are the victories I have set myself on achieving. Oh, Mrs. Pendennis, isn't it humiliating? Why isn't there a war? Why can't I go and distinguish myself somewhere and be a general? Why haven't I a genius? I say, Penn, sir, why haven't I a genius? There is a painter who lives hard by, and who sends sometimes to beg me to come and look at his work. He is in the Muggins line, too. He gets his canvases with a good light upon them, excludes the contemplation of all other objects, stands beside his pictures in an attitude himself, and thinks that he and they are masterpieces.
Masterpieces. Oh, me, what dribbling wretches we are. Fame, except that of just the one or two. What's the use of it? I say, Penn, would you feel particularly proud now if you had written Haley's poems? And as for a second place in painting, who would care to be a Caravaggio or Caracci? I wouldn't give a straw to be Caracci or Caravaggio. I would just as soon be on the artist who is painting up Focus and Tire over the public house at the corner. He will have his payment afterward, five shillings a day, and a pot of beer. Your head a little more to the light, Mrs. Pendennis, if you please. I am tiring you, I dare say, but then, oh, I am doing it so badly. I, for my part, thought Clive was making a very pretty drawing of my wife, and having affairs of my own to attend to, would often leave her at his chambers as a sitter, or find him at our lodgings visiting her.
They became the very greatest friends. I knew the young fellow could have no better friend than Laura, and not being ignorant of the malady under which he was laboring, concluded naturally and justly that Clive grew so fond of my wife, not for her sake entirely, but for his own, because he could pour his heart out to her, and her sweet kindness and compassion would soothe him in his unhappy condition. Miss Ethel, I have said, also professed a great fondness for Mrs. Pendennis, and there was that charm in the young lady's manner which speedily could overcome even female jealousy. Perhaps Laura determined magnanimously to conquer it. Perhaps she hid it so as to vex me and prove the injustice of my suspicions.
Perhaps, honestly, she was conquered by the young beauty, and gave her a regard and admiration which the other knew she could inspire whenever she had the will. My wife was fairly captivated by her at length. The untamable young creature was docile and gentle in Laura's presence. Modest, natural, amiable, full of laughter and spirits, delightful to see and to hear. Her presence cheered our quiet little household. Her charm fascinated my wife as it had subjugated poor Clive. Even the reluctant Farentosh was compelled to own her power. And confidentially told his male friends that, hang it, she was so handsome, and so clever, and so confoundedly pleasant and fascinating, and that, that he had been on the point of popping the fatal question ever so many times by Jove.
And hang it, you know, his lordship would say, I don't want to marry until I have my fling, you know. As for Clive, Ethel treated him like a boy, like a big brother. She was jocular, kind, pert, pleasant with him, ordered him on her errands, accepted his bouquets and compliments, admired his drawings, liked to hear him praised, and took his part in all companies, laughed at his size, and frankly owned to Laura her liking for him and her pleasure in seeing him. Why," said she, should not I be happy as long as the sunshine lasts? Tomorrow, I know, will be glum and dreary enough. When Grandmama comes back, I shall scarcely be able to come and see you. When I am settled in life, eh, I shall be settled in life.
Do not grudge me my holiday, Laura. Oh, if you knew how stupid it is to be in the world, and how much pleasanter to come and talk, and laugh, and sing, and be happy with you. Then to sit in that dreary Eaton Place with poor Clara. Why do you stay in Eaton Place? asked Laura. Why? Because I must go out with somebody. What an unsophisticated little country creature you are. Grandmama is away, and I cannot go about to parties by myself. But why should you go to parties, and why not go back to your mother? says Mrs. Pendennis gently. To the nursery, and my little sisters, and Miss Cannes. I like being in London best, thank you. You look grave. You think a girl should like to be with her mother and sisters best?
My dear Mama wishes me to be here, and I stay with Barnes and Clara by Grandmama's orders. Don't you know that I have been made over to Lady Q, who has adopted me? Do you think a young lady of my pretensions can stop at home in a damp house in Wurrushire and cut bread and butter for little schoolboys? Don't look so very grave and shake your head so, Mrs. Pendennis. If you had been bred as I have, you would be as I am. I know what you are thinking, madame." I am thinking," said Laura, blushing and bowing her head. I am thinking, if it pleases God to give me children, I would like to live at home at Fair Oaks. My wife's thoughts, though she did not utter them, and a certain modesty and habitual awe kept her silent upon subjects so sacred, went deeper yet.
She had been bred to measure her actions by a standard which the world may nominally admit, but which it leaves, for the most part, unheeded. Worship, love, The She spoke, but very seldom, of her religion, though it filled her heart and influenced all her behavior. Whenever she came to that sacred subject, her demeanor appeared to her husband so awful that he scarcely dared to approach it in her company, and stood without as this pure creature entered into the Holy of Holies. What must the world appear to such a person? Its ambitious rewards, disappointments, pleasures, worth how much? Compared to the possession of that priceless treasure and happiness unspeakable, a perfect faith, what has life to offer?
I see before me now her sweet gray face, as she looks out from the balcony of the little Richmond via we occupy during the first happy year after our marriage. Following Ethel Newcomb, who rides away, with a staid groom behind her, to her brother's summer residence not far distant, Clive had been with us in the morning, and had brought us stirring news. The good Colonel was by this time on his way home. If Clive could tear himself away from London, the good man wrote, and we thus saw he was acquainted with the state of the young man's mind. Why should not Clive go and meet his father at Malta? He was feverish and eager to go, and his two friends strongly counseled him to take the journey. In the midst of our talk, Miss Ethel came among us.
She arrived flushed and in high spirits. She rallied Clive upon his gloomy looks. She turned rather pale, as it seemed to us, when she heard the news. Then she coldly told him she thought the voyage must be a pleasant one, and would do him good. It was pleasanter than that journey she was going to take herself with her dreary grandmother. To those German springs which the old countess frequented year after year. Mr. Pendennis, having business, retired to his study, with her presently Mrs. Lara followed, having to look for her scissors, or a book she wanted, or upon some pretext or other. She sate down in the conjugal study. Not one word did either of us say for a while about the young people left alone in the drawing-room yonder.
Laura talked about our own home at Fair Oaks, which our tenants were about to vacate. She vowed and declared that we must live at Fair Oaks, that Clavering, with all its tittle-tattle and stupid inhabitants, was better than this wicked London. Besides, there were some new and very pleasant families settled in the neighborhood. Clavering Park was taken by some delightful people. And you know, Pen, you were always very fond of fly-fishing, and may fish the brawl, as you used in all days when—the lips of the pretty satirist who alluded to these unpleasant bygones were silenced as they deserved to be by Mr. Pendennis. Do you think, sir, I did not know, says the sweetest voice in the world, when you went out on your fishing excursions with Miss Amory?
Again, the flow of words is checked by the styptic previously applied. I wonder, says Mr. Pendennis, archly, bending over his wife's fair hand, I wonder whether this kind of thing is taking place in the drawing room. Nonsense, Arthur. It is time to go back to them. Why, I declare, I have been three-quarters of an hour away. I don't think they will miss you much, my dear, says the gentleman. She is certainly very fond of him. She is always coming here. I am sure it is not to hear you read Shakespeare, Arthur, or your new novel, though it is very pretty. I wish Lady Q and her sixty thousand pounds were at the bottom of the sea. But she says she is going to portion her younger brothers with a part of it.
She told Clive so, remarks Mr. Pendennis. Poor shame. Why does not Barnes Newcomb portion his younger brothers? I have no patience with that. Why, goodness, there is Clive going away, actually. Clive! Mr. Newcomb! But though my wife ran to the study window and beckoned our friend, he only shook his head, jumped on his horse, and rode away gloomily. Ethel had been crying when I went into the room Laura afterwards told me. I knew she had, but she looked up from some flowers over which she was bending. began to laugh and rattle, would talk about nothing but lady ho-boys, great breakfast the day before, and the most insufferable may-fair jargon, and then declared it was time to go home and dress for Mrs.
Booth's dejeuner, which was to take place that afternoon. And so Miss Newcomb rode away, back amongst the roses and the rouges, Back amongst the fiddling, flirting, flattery falseness, and Laura's sweet, serene face looked after her departing. Mrs. Booth's was a very grand adjurne. We read in the newspapers a list of the greatest names there. A royal duke and duchess, a German highness, a Hindu nabob, etc., and amongst the marquises, Farentosh, and amongst the lords, Highgate. And Lady Clara Newcomb, and Miss Newcomb, who looked killing our acquaintance, Captain Crackthorpe informs us, and who is in perfectly stunning spirits. His Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke of Farentosh, is wild about her, the captain said, and our poor young friend Clive may just go and hang himself.
Dine with us at the gar and the starter. Jolly party. Oh, I forgot. Married man now. So saying, the captain entered the hostelry near which I met him, leaving this present chronicler to return to his own home.
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51 51 - Chapter 51: An Old Friend 26:01
An Old Friend. I might open the present chapter, as a contemporary writer of romance is occasionally in the habit of commencing his tales of chivalry, by a description of a November afternoon falling leaves, tawny forests, gathering storms, and other autumnal phenomena, and two horsemen winding up the romantic road which leads from, from Richmond Bridge to the Star and Garter. The one rider is youthful, and has a blonde mustache. The cheek of the other has been browned by foreign sons. It is easy to see by the manner in which he bestrides his powerful charger that he has followed the profession of arms. He looks as if he had faced his country's enemies on many a field of eastern battle. The cavaliers alight before the gate of a cottage on Richmond Hill, where a gentleman receives them with eager welcome.
Their steeds are accommodated at a neighboring hostelry. I pause in the midst of the description, for the reader has made the acquaintance of our two horsemen long since. It is Clive returned from Malta, from Gibraltar, from Seville, from Cadiz, and with him our dear old friend, the Colonel. His campaigns are over. His sword is hung up. He leaves eastern suns and battles to warm younger blood. Welcome back to England, dear Colonel and kind friend. How quickly the years have passed since he has been gone. There is a streak or two more silver in his hair. The wrinkles about his arms dives are somewhat deeper, but their look is as steadfast and kind as in the early, almost boyish days, when first we knew them.
We talk a while about the Colonel's voyage home, the pleasures of the Spanish journey, the handsome new quarters in which Clive has installed his father and himself, my own altered condition in life and what not. During the conversation, a little cordialist voice makes itself audible above stairs, at which noise Mr. Clive begins to laugh, and the Colonel to smile. It is for the first time in his life Mr. Clive listens to the little voice. Indeed, it is only since about six weeks that that small organ has been heard in the world at all. Laura Pendennis believes its tune to be the sweetest, the most interesting, the most mirth-inspiring, the most pitiful and pathetic that ever baby uttered. Which opinions, of course, are backed by Mrs.
Hokey, the confidential nurse? Laura's husband is not so rapturous, but, let us trust, behaves in a way becoming a man and a father. We forgot the description of his feelings as not pertaining to the history at present under consideration. A little while before the dinner is served, the lady of the cottage comes down to greet her husband's old friends. And here I am sorely tempted to a third description, which has nothing to do with the story, to be sure, but which, if properly his off, might fill half a page very prettily. For does not a young mother one of the sweetest sights which life shows us? If she has been beautiful before, does not her present pure joy give a character of refinement and sacredness almost to her beauty?
Touch her sweet cheeks with fairer blushes, and impart, I know not, what serene brightness to her eyes. I give warning to the artist who designs the pictures for this voracious story, to make no attempt at this object. I never would be satisfied with it were his drawing ever so good. When Sir Charles Grandison stepped up, And made his very beautifulest bow to Miss Byron, I am sure his gracious dignity never exceeded that of Colonel Newcomb's first greeting to Mrs. Pendennis. Of course, from the very moment they beheld one another, they became friends. Are not most of our likings thus instantaneous? Before she came down to see him, Laura had put on one of the Colonel's shawls, the crimson one, with the red palm leaves and the border of many colors.
As for the white one, the priceless, the gossamer, the fairy web, which might pass through a ring that, every lady must be aware, was already appropriated to cover the cradle, or what I believe is called the bassinet, of Master Pendennis. So we all became the very best of friends, and during the winter months, whilst we still resided at Richmond, the Colonel was my wife's constant visitor. He often came without Clive. He did not care for the world which the young gentleman frequented, and was more pleased and at home by my wife's fireside than at more noisy and splendid entertainments. And, Laura being a sentimental person, interested in pathetic novels and all unhappy attachments, of course she and the Colonel talked a great deal about Mr.
Clive's little affair. Of which they would have such deep confabulations that even when the master of the house appeared, pater familias, the man whom, in the presence of the Reverend Dr. Portman, Mrs. Lahr, had sworn to love and honor these two guilty ones would be silent, or change the subject of conversation, not caring to admit such an unsympathizing person as myself into their conspiracy. For many a talk which they have had together since the colonel and his son embraced at Malta, Clive's father had been led to see how strongly the passion which our friend had once fought and mastered had now taken possession of the young man. The unsatisfied longing left him indifferent to all other objects of previous desire or ambition.
The misfortune darkened the sunshine of his spirit and clouded the world before his eyes. He passed hours in his painting room, though he tore up what he did there. He forsook his usual haunts, or appeared amongst his old comrades moody and silent. From cigar-smoking, which I own to be a reprehensible practice, he plunged into still deeper and darker dissipation. For, I am sorry to say, he took to pipes and the strongest tobacco, for which there is no excuse. Our young man has changed. During the last fifteen or twenty months, the malady had been increasing on him, of which we have not chosen to describe at length the stages, knowing very well that the reader, the male reader at least, does not care a fig about other people's sentimental perplexities, and is not wrapped up heart and soul in clives of fear like his father.
Whose rest was disturbed if the boy had a headache, and who would have stripped the coat off his back to keep his darling's feet warm. The object of this hopeless passion had, meantime, returned to the custody of the dark old Duena, from which he had been liberated for a while. Lady Q had got her health again, by means of the prescriptions of some doctors, or by the efficacy of some baths, and was again on foot and in the world, tramping about in her grim pursuit of pleasure. Lady Julia, we are led to believe, had retired upon half pay. And into an inglorious exile at Brussels, with her sister, the outlaw's wife, by whose bankrupt fireside she was perfectly happy. Ms. Newcomb was now her grandmother's companion, and they had been on a tour of visits in Scotland, and were journeying from country house to country house about the time when our good Colonel returned to his native shores.
The Colonel loved his nephew Barnes no better than before, perhaps, though we must say that since his return from India, the young baronet's conduct had been particularly friendly. No doubt marriage had improved him. Lady Clara seemed a good-natured young woman enough. Besides, says the Colonel, wagging his good old head knowingly. Tom Newcomb, of the Bundagun Bank, is a personage to be conciliated, whereas Tom Newcomb, of the Bengal Cavalry, was not worth Master Barnes's attention. He has been very good and kind on the whole, so have his friends been uncommonly civil. There was Clive's acquaintance, Mr. Belsize, that was, Lord Highgate, who is now. Entertained our whole family sumptuously last week.
Wants us and Barnes and his wife to go to his country house at Christmas. Is as hospitable, my dear Mrs. Pendennis, as man can be. He met you at Barnes's, and as soon as we are alone, says the Colonel, turning round to Laura's husband, I will tell you in what terms Lady Clara speaks of your wife. Yes, she is a good-natured, kind little woman, that Lady Clara. Here, Laura's face assumed that gravity and severeness, which is always war when Lady Clara's name was mentioned, and the conversation took another turn. Returning home from London one afternoon, I met the Colonel, who hailed me on the omnibus and rode on his way towards the city. I knew, of course, that he had been colloquying with my wife and taxed that young woman with these continued flirtations.
Two or three times a week, Mrs. Lahr, you dare to receive a kernel of dragoons. You sit for hours closeted with the young fellow of sixty. You change the conversation when your own injured husband enters the room, and pretend to talk about the weather or the baby. You little arch hypocrite. You know you do. Don't try to humbug me, miss. What will Richmond What will society, what will Mrs. Grundy in general say to such atrocious behavior? Oh, Penn, says my wife, closing my mouth in a way which I do not choose further to particularize. That man is the best, the dearest, the kindest creature. I never knew such a good man. You ought to put him into a book. Do you know, sir, that I felt the very greatest desire to give him a kiss when he went away?
And that one, which you had just now, was intended for him. Take back thy gift, false girls, says Mr. Van Dennis. And then, finally, we come to the particular circumstance which had occasioned so much enthusiasm on Mrs. Laura's part. Colonel Newcomb had summoned Heart of Grace, and in Clive's behalf had regularly proposed him to Barnes as a suitor to Ethel. Taking an artful advantage of his nephew, Barnes Newcomb, and inviting that Barnes to a private meeting where they were to talk about the affairs of the Bundelkund Banking Company. Now this Bundelkund Banking Company, in the Colonel's eyes, was in reality his son Clive. But for Clive, there might have been a hundred banking companies established, yielding a hundred percent in as many districts of India.
And Thomas Newcomb, who had plenty of money for his own wants, would never have thought of speculation. His desire was to see his boy endowed with all the possible gifts of fortune. Had he built a palace for Clive, and been informed that a rock's egg was required to complete the decoration of the edifice, Tom Newcomb would have traveled to the world's end in search of the wanting article. To see Prince Clive ride in a gold coach with a princess beside him, was the kind old colonel's ambition. That done, he would be content to retire to a garret in the prince's castle, and smoke his cheroot there in peace. So the world is made. The strong and eager covet honor and enjoyment for themselves. The gentle and disappointed, once they may have been strong and eager too, desire these gifts for their children.
I think Clive's father never liked or understood the lad's choice of a profession. He acquiesced in it, as he would in any of his son's wishes. But, not being a poet himself, he could not see the nobility of that calling, and felt secretly that his son was demeaning himself by pursuing the art of painting. Had he been a soldier now, thought Thomas Newcomb, though I prevented that, had he been richer than he is, he might have married Ethel. Instead of being unhappy as he now is, God help him. I remember my own time of grief well enough, and what years it took before my wound was scarred over. So with these things occupying his brain, Thomas Newcomb artfully invited Barnes, his nephew, to dinner under pretense of talking of the affairs of the great BBC.
With the first glass of wine at dessert, and according to the colonel's good old-fashioned custom of proposing toasts, they drank the health of the BBC. Barnes drank the toast with all his generous heart. The BBC sent to Hobson Brothers and Newcomb a great deal of business, was in a most prosperous condition, kept a great balance at the bank, a balance that would not be overdrawn, as Sir Barnes-Newcomb very well knew. Barnes was for having more of these bills, provided there were remittances to meet the same. Barnes was ready to do any amount of business with the Indian Bank, or with any bank, or with any individual, Christian or heathen, white or black, who could do good to the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcomb.
He spoke upon this subject with great archness and candor. Of course, as a city man, he would be glad to do a profitable business anywhere, and the BBC's business was profitable. But the interested motive, which he admitted, frankly, as a man of the world, did not prevent other sentiments more agreeable. My dear Colonel, says Barnes, I am happy, most happy, to think that our house and our name should have been useful. As I know they have been, in the establishment of a concern in which one of our family is interested, one whom we all so sincerely respect and regard. And he touched his glass with his lips, and blushed a little, as he bowed towards his uncle. He found himself making a little speech, indeed, and to do so before one single person seems rather odd.
Had there been a large company present, Barnes would not have blushed at all. But have tossed off his glass, struck his waistcoat, possibly, and looked straight in the face of his uncle as the chairman. Well, he did very likely believe that he respected and regarded the colonel. The colonel said, Thank you, Barnes, with all my heart. It is always good for men to be friends, much more for blood relations as we are. A relationship which honors me, I'm sure, says Barnes, with a tone of infinite affability. You see, he believed that heaven had made him the Colonel's superior. And I am very glad, the elder went on, that you and my boy are good friends. Friends, of course. It would be unnatural if such near relatives were otherwise than good friends.
You have been hospitable to him, and Lady Clara very kind, and he wrote to me telling me of your kindness. Ahem, this is tolerable claret. I wonder where Clive gets it. You were speaking about that indigo, Colonel. Here Barnes interposes. Our house has done very little in that way. To be sure, but I suppose that our credit is about as good as Barnes and Jolly's. And if— But the Colonel is in a brown study. Clive will have a good bit of money when I die, resumes Clive's father. Why, you are a hale man, upon my word, quite a young man, and may marry again, Colonel, replies the nephew, fascinatingly. I shall never do that, replies the other. Ere many years are gone, I shall be seventy years old, Barnes.
Nothing in this country, my dear sir, positively nothing. Why, there was Titus, my neighbor in the country. When will you come down to Newcomb, who married a devilish pretty girl, a very good family, too, Miss Burgeon, one of the Devonshire Burgeons? He looks, I am sure, twenty years older than you do. Why should you not do likewise? Because I'd like to remain single, and want to leave Clive a rich man. Look here, Barnes. You know the value of our bank shares now. Indeed I do. Rather speculative. But of course I know what some sold for last week, says Barnes. Suppose I realize now. I think I am worth six lakhs. I had nearly two for my poor father. I've saved some before and since I invested in this affair, and could sell out tomorrow with sixty thousand pounds.
A very pretty sum of money, Colonel, says Barnes. I have a pension of a thousand a year. "'My dear Colonel, you are a capitalist. We know it very well,' remarks Sir Barnes. "'And two hundred a year is as much as I want for myself,' continues the capitalist, looking into the fire and jingling his money in his pockets. A hundred a year for a horse, a hundred a year for pocket money, for I calculate, you know, that Clive will give me a bedroom and my dinner.'" "'He, he, if your son won't, your nephew will, my dear Colonel,' says the affable Barnes, smiling sweetly. "'I can give the boy a handsome allowance, you see,' resumes Tom Snookum. "'You can make him a handsome allowance now, and leave him a good fortune when you die,' says the nephew, in a noble and courageous manner.
And as if he had said twelve times twelve are a hundred and forty-four." And you have Sir Barnes Newcomb's authority. Sir Barnes Newcomb's, mind you, to say so. Not when I die, Barnes, the uncle goes on. I will give him every shilling I am worth tomorrow morning, if he marries as I wish him. Tet me, poor you, cries the nephew, and thought to himself. Lady Clara must ask Clive to dinner instantly. Confound the fellow. I hate him. Always have, but what luck he has. A man with that property may pretend to a good wife, as the French say. Hey, Barnes, asked the colonel rather eagerly, looking up in his nephew's face. That countenance was lighted up with a generous enthusiasm. To any woman, in any rank, to a nobleman's daughter, my dear sir, exclaimed Sir Barnes.
I want your sister. "'I want dear Ethel for him, Barnes,' cries Thomas Newcomb, with a trembling voice and a twinkle in his eyes. "'That was the hope I always had till my talk with your poor father stopped it. Your sister was engaged to my Lord Q then, and my wishes, of course, were impossible. The poor boy is very much cut up, and his whole heart is bent upon possessing her. She is not, she can't be, indifferent to him.'" I'm sure she would not be, if her family in the least encouraged him. Can either of these young folks have a better chance of happiness again, offered to them in life? There's youth, there's mutual liking, there's wealth for them almost, only saddled with the encumbrances of an old dragoon, who won't be much in their way.
Give us your good word, Barnes, and let them come together. And upon my word, the rest of my days will be made happy if I can eat my meal at their table. While support colonel was making his appeal, Barnes had time to collect his answer, which, since in our character of historians we take leave to explain gentlemen's motives as well as record their speeches and actions, we may thus interpret. Confound the young beggar, thinks Barnes then. He will have three or four thousand a year, will he? Hang him, but it's a good sum of money. What a foolish father is to give it away. Is he joking? No, he was always half crazy, the Colonel. Highgate seemed uncommonly sweet on her, and was always hanging about our house.
Garantosh has not been brought to book yet, and perhaps neither of them will propose for her. My grandmother, I should think, won't hear of her making a low marriage, as this certainly is. But it's a pity to throw away $4,000 a year, ain't it? All these natural calculations passed briskly through Barnes Newcomb's mind, as his uncle, from the opposite side of the fireplace, implored him in the above little speech. My dear Colonel, said Barnes, my dear kind Colonel, I needn't tell you that your proposal flatters us, as much as your extraordinary generosity surprises me. I never heard anything like it. Never. Could I consult my own wishes, I would at once. I would, permit me to say, from sheer admiration of your noble character, say yes with all my heart to your proposal.
But alas, I haven't that power. Is, is she engaged, asked the Colonel, looking as blank and sad as Clive himself when Ethel had conversed with him. No, I cannot say engaged, though a person of the very highest rank has paid her the most marked attention. But my sister has, in a way, gone from our family, and from my influence as the head of it, an influence which I, I am sure, had most gladly exercised in your favor. My grandmother, Lady Q, has adopted her. Proposes, I believe, to leave Ethel the greater part of her fortune, upon certain conditions, and, of course, expects the obedience, and so forth, which is customary in such cases. By the way, Colonel, is our young souverainte aware that Papa is pleading his cause for him?
The Colonel said no, and Barnes lauded the caution which his uncle had displayed. It was quite as well for the young man's interests, which Sir Barnes had most tenderly at heart, that Clive Newcomb should not himself move in the affair, or present himself to Lady Q. Barnes would take the matter in hand at the proper season. The colonel might be sure it would be most eagerly, most ardently pressed. Clive came home at this juncture, whom Barnes saluted affectionately. He and the Colonel had talked over their money business. Their conversation had been most satisfactory, thank you. Has it not, Colonel? The three parted the very best of friends. As Barnes Newcomb professed that extreme interest for his cousin and uncle, it is odd he did not tell them that Lady Q and Miss Ethel Newcomb were, at that moment, within a mile of them, at her ladyship's house in Queen Street, Mayfair.
In the hearing of Clive's servant, Barnes did not order his brogram to drive to Queen Street, but waited until he was in Bond Street before he gave the order. And of course, when he entered Lady Q's house, he straightway asked for his sister, and communicated to her the generous offer which the good Colonel had made. You see, Lady Q was in town, and not in town. Her ladyship was but passing through, on her way from a tour of visits in the north, to another tour of visits somewhere else. The newspapers were not even off the blinds. The proprietor of the house cowered over a bed candle and a furtive teapot in the back drawing room. Lady Q's gents were not there. The tall canary ones with white paws only showed their plumage and sang in spring.
The solitary wretch who takes care of London houses, and the two servants specially affected to Lady Q's person, were the only people in attendance. In fact, her ladyship was not in town, and that is why, no doubt, Barnes Newcomb said nothing about her being there.
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52 52 - Chapter 52: Family Secrets 32:34
Family Secrets. The figure cowering over the furtive teapot glowered grimly at Barnes as he entered, and an old voice said, "'Ho, it's you!' "'I have brought you the notes, ma'am,' says Barnes, taking a packet of those documents from his pocketbook. "'I could not come sooner. I have been engaged upon bank business until now.' "'I dare say, you smell of smoke like a courier.'" A foreign capitalist, he would smoke. They will, ma'am. I didn't smoke, upon my word. I don't see why you shouldn't if you like it. You will never get anything out of me whether you do or don't. How is Clara? Has she gone to the country with the children? Newcomb is the best place for her. Dr. Bambury thinks she can move in a fortnight.
The boy has had a little. A little fiddlestick. I tell you, it is she who likes to stay, and makes that fool Banbury advise her not going away. I tell you to send her to Newcomb. The air is good for her. By that confounded smoky town, my dear Lady Q. And invite your mother and little brothers and sisters to stay Christmas there. The way in which you neglect them is shameful. It is Barnes. Upon my word, ma'am, I propose to manage my own affairs without your leadership's assistance, cries Barnes, starting up, and did not come at this time of night to hear this kind of... of good advice. I sent for you to give it to you. When I wrote to you to bring me the money I wanted, it was but a pretext. Barkins might have fetched you from the city in the morning.
I want you to send Clara and the children to Newcomb. They ought to go, sir. That is why I sent for you, to tell you that. Have you been quarreling as much as usual?" Pretty much as usual, says Barnes, drumming on his hat. Don't beat that devil's tattoo, you agassettes, my poor old nerves. When Clara was given to you, she was as well-broke a girl as any in London. Sir Barnes responded by a groan. She was as gentle and amenable to reason, as good-natured a girl as could be. A little vacant and silly, but you men like dolls for your wives, and now in three years you have utterly spoiled her. She is restive. She is artful. She flies into rages. She fights you and beats you. He, he, and that comes with your beating her.
I didn't come to hear this, ma'am, says Barnes, livid with rage. You struck her. You know you did, Sir Barnes Newcomb. She rushed over to me last year on the night you did it. You know she did. Great God, ma'am, you know the provocation, screams Barnes. Provocation or not, I don't say. But from that moment, she has beat you. You fool, to write her a letter and ask her pardon. If I had been a man, I would rather have strangled my wife than have humiliated myself so before her. She will never forgive that blow. I was mad when I did it, and she drove me mad," says Barnes. She is the temper of a fiend and the ingenuity of the devil. In two years, an entire change has come over her. If I had used a knife to her, I should not have been surprised.
But it's not with you to reproach me about Clara. Your ladyship found her for me. And you spoiled her after she was found, sir. She told me part of her story that night she came to me. I know it is true, Barnes. You have treated her dreadfully, sir. I know that she makes my life miserable. And there is no help for it," says Barnes, grinding a curse between his teeth. Well, well, no more about this. How is Ethel? Gone to sleep after her journey? What do you think, ma'am? I have brought for her a proposal. Bon, dear. You don't mean to say Charles Belsize was in earnest, cries the dowager. I always thought it was a— "'It is not from Lord Highgate, ma'am,' Sir Brown said gloomily. "'It is some time since I have known that he was not in earnest, and he knows that I am now.' "'Gracious goodness!
Come to blows with him, too? You have not? That would be the very thing to make the world talk,' says the dowager, with some anxiety." "'No,' answers Barnes. "'He knows well enough that there can be no open rupture.' We had some words the other day at a dinner he gave at his own house. Colonel Newcomb and that young beggar Clive and that fool Mr. Hobson were there. Lord Highgate was confoundedly insolent. He told me that I did not dare to quarrel with him because of the account he kept at our house. I should have liked to have massacred him. She has told him that I struck her, the insolent brute. He says he will tell it at my clubs, and threatens personal violence to me there, if I do it again.
Lady Q, I'm not safe from that man and that woman, cries poor Barnes, in an agony of terror. Fighting is Jack Belsize's business, Barnes Newcomb. Banking is yours, luckily," said the Dowager. As old Lord Highgate was to die, and his eldest son too, it is a pity, certainly, that they had not died a year or two earlier, and left poor Clara and Charles to come together. You should have married some woman in the serious way. My daughter Wallum could have found you one. Frank, I am told, and his wife gone very sweetly together. Her mother-in-law governs the whole family. They have turned the theatre back into a chapel again. They have six little ploughboys dressed in surplices to sing the service, and Frank and the vicar of Q.
Berry play a cricket with them on holidays. Stay. Why should not Clara go to Q. Berry? She and her sister have quarreled about this very affair with Lord Highgate. Some time ago, It appears they had words about it, and when I told Q that bygones had best be bygones, that Highgate was very sweet upon Ethel Nile. And that I did not choose to lose such a good account as his, Q was very insolent to me. His conduct was blackardly, ma'am, quite blackardly. And you may be sure, but for our relationship, I would have called him to. Here the talk between Barnes and his ancestress was interrupted by the appearance of Miss Ethel Newcomb, taper in hand, who descended from the upper regions enveloped in a shawl.
"'How do you do, Barnes? How is Clara? I long to see my little nephew. Is he like his pretty papa?' cries the young lady, giving her fair cheek to her brother. "'Scotland has agreed with our Newcomb Rose,' says Barnes gallantly." My dear Ethel, I never saw you in greater beauty. By the light of one bedroom candle, what should I be if the whole room were lighted? You would see my face then was covered all over with wrinkles, and quite pale and woe-begone, with the dreariness of the Scotch journey. Oh, what a time we have spent, haven't we, Grandmama? I never wished to go to a great castle again. Above all, I never wished you'd go to a little shooting box. Scotland may be very well for men, but for women, allow me to go to Paris when next there is talk of a Scotch expedition.
I'd rather be in a boarding school in the Champs-Élysées than in the finest castle in the Highlands. If it had not been for a blessed quarrel with Fanny Fallington, I think I should have died at Glen Shorthorn. Have you seen, my dear? Dear Uncle the Colonel, when did he arrive? Is he come? Why, is he come? asked Lady Q. Is he come? Look here, Grandmama. Did you ever see such a darling shawl? I found it in a packet in my room. Well, it is beautiful, cries the Dowager, bending her ancient nose over the web. Your Colonel is a gallant arm. That must be said of him. And in this does not quite take after the rest of the family. Hum, hum, is he going away again soon? He has made a fortune, a very considerable fortune for a man in that rank in life, says Sir Barnes.
He cannot have less than sixty thousand pounds. Is that much, asks Ethel? Not in England, at our rate of interest, but his money is in India, where he gets a great percentage. His income must be five or six thousand pounds, ma'am," says Barnes, turning to Lady Q. A few of the Indians were in society in my time, my dear," says Lady Q, musingly. My father has often talked to me about Barbell of Stansted and his house in St. James Square, the man who ordered more curricles when there were not carriages enough for his guests. I was taken to Mr. Hastings' trial. It was very stupid and long. The young man, the painter, I suppose will leave his paint pots now, and set up as a gentleman. I suppose they were very poor, or his father would not have put him to such a profession.
Barnes, why did you not make him a clerk in the bank, and save him from the humiliation? Humiliation? Why, he is proud of it. My uncle is as proud as a plantagenet. Though he is as humble as. As what? Give me a simile, Barnes. Do you know what my quarrel with Fanny Fallington was about? She said we were not descended from the barber-surgeon, and laughed at the Battle of Bosworth. She says our great-grandfather was a weaver. Was he a weaver? How should I know? And what on earth does it matter, my child? Except the Gaunts, the Howards, and one or two more, there is scarcely any good blood in England. You are lucky in sharing some of mine. My poor Lord Q's grandfather was an apothecary at Hampton Court, and founded the family by giving a dose of rhubarb to Queen Caroline.
As a rule, nobody is of a good family. Didn't that young man, that son of the colonel's, go about last year? How did he get in society? Where did we meet him? Oh, at Baden, yes, when Barnes was courting. And my grandson, yes, my grandson, acted so wickedly. Here she began to cough and to tremble so that her old stick shook under her hand. Ring the bell for Ross. Ross, I will go to bed. Go you too, Ethel. Have you been traveling enough today? Her memory seems to fail her a little, Ethel whispered to her brother, or she will only remember what she wishes. Don't you see that she has grown very much older? I will be with her in the morning. I have business with her, said Barnes. Good night. Give my love to Clara, and kiss the little ones for me.
Have you done what you promised me, Barnes? What? To be kind to Clara. Don't say cruel things to her. She has a high spirit, and she feels them, though she says nothing. Doesn't she? said Barnes grimly. Ah, Barnes, be gentle with her. Seldom as I saw you together, when I lived with you in the spring, I could see that you were harsh, though she affected to laugh when she spoke of your conduct to her. Be kind. I am sure it is the best, Barnes. Better than all the wit in the world. Look at Grandmama. How witty she was and is. What a reputation she had. How people were afraid of her. And see her now, quite alone. I'll see her in the morning quite alone, my dear, says Barnes, waving a little gloved hand.
Bye-bye. And his program drove away. While Ethel Newcomb had been under her brother's roof, where I and friend Clive and scores of others had been smartly entertained, there had been quarrels and recriminations, misery and heart-burning, cruel words and shameful struggles. The wretched combatants in which appears before the world, with smiling faces, resuming their battle when the feast was concluded and the company gone. On the next morning, When Barnes came to visit his grandmother, Miss Newcomb was gone away to see her sister-in-law, Lady Q said, with whom she was going to pass the morning. So Barnes and Lady Q had an uninterrupted tete-a-tete, in which the former acquainted the old lady with the proposal which Colonel Newcomb had made to him on the previous night.
Lady Q wondered what the impudence of the worlds would come to. An artist proposed for Ethel. One of her footmen might propose next, and she supposed Barnes would bring the message. The father came and proposed for this young painter, and you didn't order him out of the room? Barnes laughed. The colonel is one of my constituents. I can't afford to order the Bundelkund Banking Company out of its own room. You did not tell Ethel this pretty news, I suppose. Of course I didn't tell Ethel, nor did I tell the Colonel that Ethel was in London. He fancies her in Scotland with your ladyship at this moment. I wish the Colonel were at Calcutta, and his son with him. I wish he was in the Ganges. I wish he was under Juggernaut's cars, cried the old lady.
How much money has the wretch really got? If he is of importance to the bank, of course you must keep well with him. Five thousand a year, and he says he will settle it all on his son. He must be crazy. There is nothing some of these people will not do, no sacrifice they will not make, to ally themselves with good families. Certainly you must remain on good terms with him and his bank, and we must say nothing of the business to Ethel. And trot out of town as quickly as we can. Let me see. We go to Drummington on Saturday. This is Tuesday. Barkins, you will keep the front drawing room shutters shut. And remember, we are not in town, unless Lady Glenlivet or Lord Farentosh should call. Do you think Farentosh will?
Will call, ma'am? asked Barnes demurely. He will be going through to Newmarket. He has been where we have been at two or three places in Scotland, replies the lady, with equal gravity. His poor mother wishes him to give up his bachelor's life, as well she may. For you young men are terribly dissipated. Rossmont is quite a regal place. His Norfolk house is not inferior. A young man of that station ought to marry, and live at his places, and be an example to his people. Instead of frittering away his time at Paris and Vienna amongst the most odious company. Is he going to Drummington? asked the grandson. I believe he has been invited. We shall go to Paris for November. He probably will be there, answered the Dowager casually, and tired of the dissipated life he has been leading.
Let us hope he will mend his ways, and find a virtuous, well-bred young woman to keep him right. With this, her ladyship's apothecary is announced, and her banker and grandson takes his leave. Sir Barnes walked into the city with his umbrella, read his letters, conferred with his partners and confidential clerks, was for a while not the exasperated husband, or the affectionate brother, or the amiable grandson. But the shrewd, brisk banker engaged entirely with his business. Presently he had occasion to go on, change, or elsewhere to confer with brother capitalists, and in Cornhill, behold, he meets his uncle, Colonel Newcomb, riding towards the India House, a groom behind him. The Colonel springs off his horse, and Barnes greets him in the blandest manner.
"'Have you any news for me?' Barnes cries the officer. "'The accounts from Calcutta are remarkably good. That cotton is of admirable quality, really.' Mr. Briggs of our house, who knows cotton as well as any man in England, says, "'It's not the cotton, my dear Sir Barnes,' cries the other. "'The bills are perfectly good. There is no sort of difficulty about them. Our house will take half a million of them if.'" You are talking of bills, and I am thinking of poor Clive, the colonel interposes. I wish you could give me good news for him, Barnes. I wish I could. I heartily trust that I may someday. My good wishes, you know, are enlisted in your son's behalf, cries Barnes gallantly. Drove place to talk sentiment in.
Cornhill, isn't it? But Ethel, as I told you, is in the hands of higher powers, and we must conciliate Lady Q if we can. She has always spoken very highly of Clive. Very. Had I not best go to her, asked the Colonel. Into the north, my good sir. She is, uh, she is traveling about. I think you had best depend upon me. Good morning. In the city we have no hearts. You know, Colonel. Be sure you shall hear from me as soon as Lady Q and Ethel come to town. And the banker hurried away, shaking his fingertips to his uncle, and leaving the good colonel utterly surprised at his statements. For the fact is, the colonel knew that Lady Q was in London, having been apprised of the circumstances in the simplest manner in the world, namely, by a note from Miss Ethel.
Which billet he had in his pocket, whilst he was talking with the head of the House of Hobson Brothers. My dear uncle, the note said, how glad I shall be to see you. How should I thank you for the beautiful shawl, and the kind, kind remembrance of me. I found your present yesterday evening on our arrival from the North. We were only here en poisson. and see nobody in Queen Street but Barnes, who has just been about business, and he does not count, you know. I shall go and see Clara tomorrow, and make her take me to see your pretty friend, Mrs. Pendennis. How glad I should be if you happened to pay Mrs. P. a visit about two. Good night. I thank you a thousand times, and I'm always your affectionate E.
Queen Street, Tuesday night. Twelve o'clock. This note came to Colonel Newcomb's breakfast table, and he smothered the exclamation of wonder which was rising to his lips, not choosing to provoke the questions of Clive, who stayed opposite to him. Clive's father was in a woeful perplexity all that forenoon. Tuesday night, twelve o'clock, thought he. Why, Barnes must have gone to his grandmother for my dinner table. And he told me she was out of town, and said so again just now when we met in the city. The colonel was riding toward Richmond at this time. What cause had the young man to tell me these lies? Lady Q may not wish to be at home for me, but need Barnes Newcomb say what is untrue to mislead me?
The fellow actually went away simpering and kissing his hand to me with a falsehood on his lips. What a pretty villain. A fellow would deserve, and has got, a horse whipping for less. And to think of a newcomer doing this to his own flesh and blood, a young Judas. Very sad and bewildered, the Colonel rode towards Richmond, where he was to happen to call on Mrs. Pendennis. It was not much of a fib that Parnes had told, Lady Q announcing that she was out of town. Her grandson, no doubt, thought himself justified in saying so, as any other of her servants would have done. But if he had recollected how Ethel came down with the Colonel's shawl on her shoulders, how it was possible she might have written to thank her uncle, surely Barnes Newcomb would not have pulled that unlucky low bow.
The banker had other things to think of than Ethel and her shawl. When Thomas Newcomb dismounted at the door of Honeymoon Cottage, Richmond, the temporary residence of A. Penn Dennis, Esquire, one of the handsomest young women in England, ran into the passage with outstretched arms, called him her dear uncle, and gave him two kisses, that I dare say brought blushes on his lean, sunburnt cheeks. Ethel clung always to his affection. She wanted that man, rather than any other in the whole world, to think well of her. When she was with him, she was the amiable and simple, the loving, impetuous creature of all times. She chose to think of no other. Worldliness, heartlessness, eager scheming, cold flotations, marquee hunting, and the like disappeared for a while, and were not As she sated that honest man's side, oh me, that we should have to record such charges against Ethel Newcomb.
He was come home for good now. He would never leave that boy he spoiled so, who was a good boy, too. She wished she could see him oftener, at Paris, at Madame de Florac's. I found out all about Madame de Florac's, sir," says Miss Ethel with a laugh. We used often to meet there, and here, sometimes in London. But in London it was different. You know what peculiar notions some people have, and as I live with Grandmama, who is most kind to me and my brothers, of course I must obey her, see her, etc., etc. That the young lady went on talking defending herself, whom nobody attacked, protesting her dislike to gaiety and dissipation. You would have fancied her in artless young country laughs, only longing to trip back to her village, milk her cows at sunrise, and sit spinning of winter evenings by the fire.
Why do you come and spoil my tete-a-tete with my uncle, Mr. Pendennis, cries the young lady to the master of the house, who happens to enter, of all the men in the world the one I like best to talk to. Does he not look younger than when he went to India? When Clive marries that pretty little Miss Mackenzie, you will marry again, Uncle, and I will be jealous of your wife. Did Barnes tell you that we had met last night, my dear, asked the Colonel? Not one word. Your shawl and your dear kind note told me you were come. Why did not Barnes tell us? Why do you look so grave? He has not told her that I was here. And would have me believe her absent, thought Newcomb, as his countenance fell. Shall I give her my own message, and plead my poor boy's cause with her?
I know not whether he was about to lay his suit before her. He said himself subsequently that his mind was not made up. But at this juncture, a procession of nurses and babies made their appearance, followed by the two mothers, who had been comparing their mutual prodigies. Each lady having her own private opinion, Lady Clara and my wife. The latter for once gracious to Lady Clara Newcomb, in consideration of the infantine company with which she came to visit Mrs. Pendennis. Luncheon was served presently. The carriage of the Newcombs drove away, my wife smilingly pardoning Ethel for the assignation which the young person had made at our house. And when those young ladies were gone, our good Colonel held the Council of War with us, his two friends, and told us what had happened between him and Barnes on that morning and the previous night.
His offer to sacrifice every shilling of his fortune to young Clive seemed to him to be perfectly simple, though the recital of the circumstance brought tears into my wife's eyes. He mentioned it, by the way. And as a matter that was scarcely to call for comment, much less praise. Barnes' extraordinary statements respecting Lady Q's absence puzzled the elder Newcomb, and he spoke of his nephew's conduct with much indignation. In vain, I urged that her ladyship desiring to be considered absent from London, her grandson was bound to keep her secret. Keep her secret, yes. Tell me lies, no. cries out the Colonel. Sir Barnes' conduct was in fact indefensible, though not altogether unusual. The worst deduction to be drawn from it, in my opinion, was that Clive's chance with the young lady was but a poor one, and that Sir Barnes Newcomb, inclined to keep his uncle in good humor, would therefore give him no disagreeable refusal.
Now this gentleman could no more pardon a lie. Then he could utter one. He would believe all and everything a man told him until deceived once, after which he never forgave. And wrath being once roused in his simple mind, and distrust firmly fixed there, his anger and prejudices gathered daily. He could see no single good quality in his opponent, and hated him with a daily increasing bitterness. As ill luck would have it, That very same evening, at his return to town, Thomas Newcomb entered Bay's Club, of which, at our request, he had become a member during his last visit to England, and there was Sir Barnes, as usual, on his way homewards from the city. Barnes was writing at a table and sealing and closing a letter, as he saw the colonel enter.
He thought he had been a little inattentive and curt with his uncle in the morning. Had remarked, perhaps, the expression of disapproval on the Colonel's countenance. He simpered up to his uncle as the latter entered the club room, and apologized for his haste when they met in the city in the morning. All city men were so busy. And I have been writing about that little affair just as you came in, he said. Quite a moving letter to Lady Q, I assure you. And I do hope and trust we shall have a favorable answer in a day or two. You said her ladyship was in the north, I think, said the Colonel dryly. Oh, yes, in the north at Lord Walson's. Great coal proprietor, you know. And your sister is with her?
Ethel is always with her. I hope you will send her my very best remembrances, said the Colonel. "'I'll open the letter and add him in the postscript,' said Barnes. "'Confounded liar!' cried the Colonel, mentioning the circumstance to me afterwards. "'Why does not somebody pitch him out of the bowl window?' "'If we were in the secret of Sir Barnes Newcomb's correspondence, "'and could but peep into that particular letter to his grandmother, "'I dare say we should read that he had seen the Colonel.'" He was very anxious about his darling youth's suit, but pursuant to Lady Q's desire, Barnes had stoutly maintained that her ladyship was still in the North, enjoying the genial hospitality of Lord Waltzend.
That, of course, he should say nothing to Ethel, except with Lady Q's full permission, that he wished her a pleasant trip too, and was, etc., etc. Then, If we could follow him, we might see him reach his Belgraveon mansion and fling an angry word to his wife as she sits alone in the darkling drawing-room, pouring over the embers. He will ask her, probably with an oath, why the blank she is not dressed, and if she always intends to keep her company waiting, and our hens, each with a smirk. And the lady in smart brahment, with flowers in her hair, will be greeting their guests as they arrive. Then will come dinner in such conversation as it brings. Then at night, Sir Barnes will issue forth, cigar in mouth, to return to his own chamber at his own hour, to breakfast by himself, to go citywards, money-getting.
He will see his children once a fortnight, and exchange a dozen sharp words with his wife. More and more sad does the Lady Clara become from day to day, liking more to sit lonely over the fire, careless about the sarcasms of her husband, the prattle of her children. She cries sometimes over the cradle of the young heir. She is a weary, a weary. You understand, the man to whom her parents hold her does not make her happy. Though she has been bought with diamonds, two carriages, several large footmen, a fine country house with delightful gardens, and conservatories, and with all this she is miserable. Is it possible?
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53 53 - Chapter 53: In which Kinsmen fall out 53:57
Not the least difficult part of Thomas Newcomb's present business was to keep from his son all knowledge of the negotiation in which he was engaged on Clive's behalf. If my gentle reader has had sentimental disappointments, he or she is aware that the friends who have given him most sympathy under these calamities have been persons who have had dismal histories of their own at some time of their lives. And I conclude Colonel Newcomb, in his early days, must have suffered very cruelly in that affair, of which we have a slight cognizance, or he would not have felt so very much anxiety about Clive's condition. A few chapters back, and we describe the first attack, and Clive's manful cure. Then we had to indicate the young gentleman's relapse and the noisy exclamations of the youth under the second outbreak of fever, calling him back after she had dismissed him and finding pretext after pretext to see him.
Why did the girl encourage him, as she certainly did? I allow, with Mrs. Grundy and most moralists, that Miss Newcomb's conduct in this matter was highly reprehensible, that if she did not intend to marry Clive, she should have broken with him altogether, that a virtuous young woman of high principle, etc., etc., having once determined to reject a suitor, should separate from him utterly then and there. Never give him again the least chance of a hope, or re-illume the extinguished fire in the wretch's bosom. But coquetry, but kindness, but family affection, and a strong, very strong partiality for the rejected lover, are these not to be taken into account, and to plead as excuses for her behavior to her cousin.
The least unworthy part of her conduct, some critics will say, The only thing was that desire to see Clive and be well with him, as she felt the greatest regard for him. The showing of it was not blamable, and every flutter which she made to escape out of the measures which the The world had cast about her was but the natural effort at liberty. It was her prudence which was wrong, and her submission wherein she was most culpable. In the early church story, Do we not read how many young Maharis constantly had to disobey worldly papas and mamas, who would have had them silent and not utter their dangerous opinions? How their parents locked them up, kept them on bread and water, whipped and tortured them in order to enforce obedience?
Nevertheless, they would declare the truth. They would defy the gods by law established. And delivered themselves up to the lions or the tormentors. Are not there heathen idols enshrined among us still? Does not the world worship them and persecute those who refuse to kneel? Do not many timid souls sacrifice to them, and other bolder spirits rebel and, with rage at their hearts, bend down their stubborn knees at their altars? See? I began by siding with Mrs. Grundy and the world, and at the next turn other see-saw have lighted down on Ethel's side. Am am disposed to think that the very best part of her conduct has been those escapades which—which right-minded persons most justly condemn. At least, that a young beauty should torture a man with alternate liking and indifference.
Allure, dismiss. And called him back out of banishment. Practice arts to please upon him, and ignore them when rebuked for her coquetry. These are surely occurrences so common in young women's history as to call for no special censure. And if on these charges, Miss Newcomb is guilty, is she, of all her sex, alone in her criminality? So Ethel and her Duana went away upon their tour of visits to mansions so splendid, and among hosts and guests so polite, that the present modest historian does not dare to follow them. Suffice it to say that Duke this and Earl that were, according to their hospitable custom, entertaining a brilliant circle of friends at their respective castles, all whose names the morning post gave.
And among them, those of the Dowager Countess of Q and Miss Newcomb. During her absence, Thomas Newcomb grimly awaited the result of his application to Barnes. That baronet showed his uncle a letter, or rather a postscript from Lady Q, which probably had been dictated by Barnes himself, and which the Dowager said she was greatly touched by Colonel Newcomb's noble offer. that though she owned, she had very different views for her granddaughter. Miss Newcomb's choice, of course, lay with herself. Meanwhile, Lady Kay and Ethel were engaged in a round of visits to the country, and there would be plenty of time to resume this subject when they came to London for the season. And, lest dear Ethel's feelings should be needlessly agitated by a discussion of the subject, and the colonel should take a fancy to write to her privately.
Lady Q. gave orders that all letters from London should be dispatched under cover to her ladyship, and carefully examined the contents of the packet before Ethel received her share of the correspondence. To write to her personally on the subject of the marriage, Thomas Newcomb had determined was not a proper course for him to pursue. "'They consider themselves,' says he. above us, forsooth in their rank of life. Oh, mercy, what pygmies we are! And don't angels weep at the brief authority in which we dress ourselves up? And, of course, the approaches on our side must be made in regular form, and the parents of the young people must act for them. Clive is too honorable a man to wish to conduct the affair in any other way.
He might try the influence of her beaux-erres, and run off to Gretna with a girl who had nothing. But the young lady being wealthy, and his relation, sir, we must on the point of honor and all the queues in Christendom, shan't have more pride than we in this matter. All this time we are keeping Mr. Clyde purposely in the background. His face is so woe-begone that we do not care to bring it forward in the family picture. His case is so common that surely its lugubrious symptoms need not be described at length. He works away fiercely at his pictures, and in spite of himself improves in his art. He sent a combat of cavalry, and a picture of Sir Brian the Templar carrying off Rebecca to the British institution that year, both of which pieces were praised in other journals besides the Pell-Mell Gazette.
He did not care for the newspaper praises. He was rather surprised when the dealer purchased his Sir Brian the Templar. He came and went from our house a melancholy swain. He was thankful for Laura's kindness and pity. J.J.'s studio was his principal resort, and I dare say, as he set up his own easel there and worked by his friend's side, he bemoaned his lot to his sympathizing friend. Sir Barnes Newcomb's family was absent from London during the winter. His mother and his brothers and sisters, his wife and his two children, were gone to Newcomb for Christmas. Some six weeks after seeing him, Ethel wrote her uncle a kind merry letter. They had been performing private theatricals at the country house where she and Lady Q were staying.
Captain Crackthorpe made an admirable Jeremy Diddler, in Raising the Wind. Lord Farentosh broke down lamentably as Fuss-Pose in Bombass Furioso. Miss Ethel had distinguished herself in both of these facetious little comedies. I should like Clive to paint me as Miss Plainway, she wrote. I wore a powdered front, painted my face all over with wrinkles, imitated old Lady Griffin as well as I could, And looks sixty, at least. Thomas Newcomb wrote an answer to his fair niece's pleasant letter. Clive, he said, would be happy to bargain to paint her, and nobody else but her, all the days of his life, and, the colonel was sure, would admire her at sixty as much as he did now, when she was forty years younger.
But determined on maintaining his appointed line of conduct respecting Miss Newcomb, He carried his letter to Sir Barnes, and desired him to forward it to his sister. Sir Barnes took the note, and promised to dispatch it. The communications between him and his uncle had been very brief and cold, since the telling of these little fibs concerning old lady Q's visits to London, which the baronet dismissed from his mind as soon as they were spoken, and which the good colonel never could forgive. Barnes asked his uncle to dinner once or twice, but the Colonel was engaged. How was Barnes to know the reason of the elder's refusal? A London man, a banker, and a member of Parliament has a thousand things to think of, and no time to wonder that friends refuse his invitations to dinner.
Barnes continued to grin and smile most affectionately when he met the Colonel. To press his hand, to congratulate him on the last accounts from India, unconscious of the scorn and distrust with which his senior mentally regarded him. Old boy is doubtful about the young cub's love affair, the baronet may have thought. We'll ease his old mind on that point sometime hence. No doubt Barnes thought he was conducting the business very smartly and diplomatically. I heard news myself at this period from the gallant Crackthorpe, which, being interested in my young friend's happiness, filled me with some dismay. Our friend the painter in Glacier has been hankering about our barracks at Knightsbridge. The noble lifeguards, green, had now pitched their tents in that suburb, and pumping about La Belle Cuisine.
I do not like to break it to him. I don't really now. But it's all up with his chance, I think. Those private theatricals of Fallowfield have done Farantosh's business. He used to rave about the Newcombs to me, as we were riding home from hunting. He gave Bob Hinchman the lie, who told a story about Bob got from his man, who had a from Miss Newcombe's lady's maid about, about some journey to Brighton, which the cousins took. Here, Mr. Crapthorpe, Grinned most facetiously. Parentosh swore he'd knock Henchman down, and Vowsey will be the death of, will murder our friend Clive when he comes to town. As for Henchman, he was in a desperate way. He lives on the Marquis, you know, and Parentosh's anger or his marriage will be the loss of three quarters, and ever so many good dinners a year to him.
I did not deem it necessary to impart Crackdorf's story to Clive, or explain to him the reason why Lord Farentosh scowled most fiercely upon the young painter, and passed him without any other sign of recognition one day as Clive and I were walking together in pell-mell. If my Lord wanted a quarrel, young Clive was not a man to balk him. And would have been a fierce customer to deal with in his actual state of mind. A pauper child in London at seven years old knows how to go to market, to fetch the beer, to pawn father's coat, to choose the largest fried fish or the nicest ham bone, to nurse Mary Jane of three, to conduct a hundred operations of trade or housekeeping. which a little Belgravian does not perhaps acquire in all the days of her life.
Poverty and necessity force this precociousness on the poor little brat. There are children who are accomplished shop-lifters and liars almost as soon as they can toddle and speak. I dare say, little princes, know the laws of etiquette as regards themselves, and their respect due to their rank. at a very early period of their royal existence. Every one of us, according to his degree, can point to the prince-kins of private life who are flattered and worshipped, and whose little shoes grown men kiss as soon almost as they walk upon ground. It is a wonder what human nature will support, and that Considering the amount of flattery some people are crammed with from their cradles, they do not grow worse and more selfish than they are.
Our poor little pauper just mentioned is dosed with Daffy's elixir and somehow survives the drug. Prince Kin or Lord Kin from his earliest days has nurses, dependents, governesses, little friends, schoolfellows, schoolmasters, fellow collegians, college tutors, Stewards and valets, lead captains of his suite, and women innumerable flattering him and doing him honor. The tradesman's manor, which to you and me is decently respectful, becomes straightway frantically servile before Prinskin. Honest folks at railway stations whisper to their families, That's the Marquis of Farentosh, and look hard at him as he passes. Landlords cry. This way, my lord. This room for your lordship. They say at public schools, Prinsken is taught the beauties of equality and thrashed into some kind of subordination.
Toad eaters in pinafore surround Prinsken. Do not respectable people send their children so as to be at the same school with him? Don't they follow him to college and eat his toads through life? And as for women... Oh, my dear friends and brethren in this field of tears, did you ever see anything so curious, monstrous, and amazing as the way in which women court Prinskin when he is marriageable, and pursue him with their daughters? Who was the British nobleman in all days who brought his three daughters to the King of Mercia, that His Majesty might choose one after inspection? Mercia was but a petty province, and its king, in fact, a princekin. Ever since those extremely ancient and venerable times, the custom exists not only in Mercia, but in all the rest of the provinces inhabited by the Angles, and before princekins, the daughters of our nobles are trotted out.
There was no day of his life which our young acquaintance, the Marquis of Parentage, could remember on which he had not been flattered, and no society which did not pay him port. At a private school, he could recollect the master's wife stroking his pretty curls and treating him furtively to goodies. At college, he had the tutor simpering and bowing as he swaggered over the grass-plot. Old men at clubs would make way for him and fawn on him. Not your mere pique essence and penniless parasites, but most respectable toad-eaters, fathers of honest families, gentlemen themselves of good station, who respected this young gentleman as one of the institutions of their country, and the admired wisdom of the nation that set him to legislate over us.
When Lord Ferentosh walked the streets at night, he felt himself like Haroom al-Rashid. That is, he would have felt so had he ever heard of the Arabian potentate, a monarch in disguise avidly observing and promenading the city. And let us be sure there was a monsieur in his train to knock at the doors for him and run the errands of this young caliph. Of course he met with scores of men in life who neither flattered him nor would suffer his airs, but he did not like the company of such, or, for the sake of truth, undergo the ordeal of being laughed at. He preferred toadies. Generally speaking, I like, says he, you know, those fellows who are always saying pleasant things, you know, and who would run from here to Hammersmith if I asked him.
Much better than those fellows who are always making fun of me, you know. A manifestation, who likes flatterers, need not shut himself up. He can get plenty of society. As for women, it was his lordship's opinion that every daughter of Eve was bent on marrying him. A Scotch Marquis, an English Earl, of the best blood in the Empire, with a handsome person, and a fortune of fifteen thousand a year. How could the poor creatures do otherwise than long for him? He blandly received their caresses, took their coaxing and cajolery as matters of course, and surveyed the beauties of his time as the caliph, the moon-faces of his harem. My lord intended to marry, certainly. He did not care for money, nor for the rank, He expected consummate beauty and talent, and some day would fling his handkerchief to the possessor of these, and place her by his side upon the Ferentosh throne.
At this time there were but two or three young ladies in society endowed with the necessary qualifications, or who found favor in his eyes. His lordship hesitated in his selection from these beauties. He was not in a hurry. He was not angry at the notion that Lady Q, and Miss Newcomb with her, hunted him. What else should they do but pursue an object so charming? Everybody hunted him. The other young ladies, whom we need not mention, languished after him still more longingly. He had little notes from these, presents of purses worked by them, and cigar cases embroidered with his coronet. They sang to him in cozy boudoirs. Mama went out of the room, and Sister Anne forgot something in the drawing-room.
They ogled him as they sang. Trembling, they gave him a little foot to mount them, that they might ride on horseback with him. They tripped along by his side from the hall to the pretty country church on Sundays. They warbled hymns, sweetly looking at him the while Mama whispered confidentially to him. What an angel Cecile is! and so forth, and so forth, with which Chaff, our noble bird, was by no means to be caught. When he had made up his great mind that the time was come and the woman, he was ready to give a marchioness of parentage to the English nation. Miss Newcomb has been compared ere this to the statue of Huntress Diana at the Louvre, whose haughty figure and beauty the young lady indeed somewhat resembled.
I was not present when Diana and Diana's grandmother hunted the noble Scottish stag of whom we had just been writing, nor care to know how many times Lord Farentosh escaped, and how at last he was brought to bay and taken by his resolute pursuers. Paris, it appears, was the scene of his fall and capture. The news was no doubt well known among Lord Farentausch's brother Dandies, among exasperated matrons and virgins in Mayfair, and in polite society generally, before it came to simple Tom Newcomb and his son. Not a word on the subject has Sir Barnes mentioned to the Colonel. Perhaps not choosing to speak till the intelligence was authenticated. Perhaps not wishing to be the bearer of tidings so painful.
Though the Colonel may have read in his Pell-Mell Gazette a paragraph which announced an approaching marriage and high life between a noble young Marquis and an accomplished and beautiful young lady, daughter and sister of Northern Baronet. He did not know who were the fashionable persons about to be made happy, nor, until he received a letter from an old friend who lived at Paris, was the fact conveyed to him. Here is the letter preserved by him, along with all that he ever received from the same hand. Rue St. Dominique, Saint-Germain, Paris, 10 February. So behold you of return, my friend. You quit forever the sword of those arid plains, where you have passed so many years of your life, separated from those to whom, at the commencement, you held very nearly.
Did it not seem once as if two hands never could unlock? So closely were they inlaced together? Ah, mine are old and feeble now. Forty years have passed since the time when you used to say they were young and fair. How well I remember me of every one of those days, though there is a death between me and them, and it is as across a grave I review them. Yet another parting, and tears and regrets are finished. Ten-a, I do not believe them when they say there is no meeting for us afterwards. They are above. "'To what good to have seen you, friend, if we are to part here, and in heaven, too? I have not altogether forgotten your language, is it not so?' "'I remember it because it was yours, and that of my happy days.
I were adult like an old woman, as I am. Monsieur de Florac has known my history from the commencement, May I not say that after so many years I have been faithful to him and to all my promises? When the end comes with its great absolution, I shall not be sorry. One supports the combats of life, but they are long, and one comes from them very wounded. Ah, when shall they be over? You return, and I salute you with wishes for parting. How much egotism! I have another project which I pleased myself to arrange. You know how I am arrived to love Clive as my own child. I very quick surprised his secret, the poor boy, when he was here. It is twenty months. He looks so like you, as I repeal me of you in the old time.
He told me he had no hope of his beautiful cousin. I have heard of the fine marriage that one makes her. Paul, my son, has been at the English Embassade last night and has made his congratulations to Monsieur de Farentoche. Paul says him handsome, young, not too spiritual, rich, and haughty, like all, all noble Monteguards. But it is not of Monsieur de Farentoche I write, whose marriage, without doubt, has been announced to you. I have a little project. Very foolish, perhaps. You know Mr. the Duke of Ivory, has left me guardian of his little daughter Antoinette, who is a fruice mother. No one sees more. Antoinette is pretty and good and soft and with an affectionate heart. I love her already as my infant.
I wish to bring her up, and that Clive should marry her. They say you are returned very rich. What follies are these I write? In the long evenings of winter, the children escaped it at a long time from the maternal nest, a silent old man, my only company. I lived but of the past, and played with its souvenirs as the detained caressed little birds, little flowers, in their prisons. I was born for the happiness, my God. I have learned it in knowing you. In losing you, I have lost it. It is not against the will of heaven I oppose myself. It is man who makes himself so much of this evil and misery, this slavery, these tears, these crimes, perhaps. This marriage of the young Scotch Marquis and the fair Ethel, I love her in spite of all, and shall see her soon and congratulate her, for, do you see, I might have stopped this fine marriage.
And did my best and more than my duty for our poor Clive. Shall make itself in London next spring, I hear. You shall assist scarcely at the ceremony. He, poor boy, shall not care to be there. Bring him to Paris to make the court to my little Antoinette. Bring him to Paris to his good friend Comtesse de Florac. I read marvels of his works in an English journal, which one sends me. Clive was not by when this letter reached his father. Clive was in his painting room, unless he should meet his son, and in order to devise the best means of breaking the news to the lad. Thomas Newcomb retreated out of doors, and from the Oriental he crossed Oxford Street, and from Oxford Street he stalked over the rumored pavements of Gloucester Place, and there he bethought him how he had neglected Mrs.
Hobson Newcomb of late. And the interesting family of Bryan Stone Square. So he went to leave his card at Maria's store. Her daughters, as we have said, are quite grown girls. If they have been lectured and learning and backboarded, And practicing, and using the globes, and laying in a store of ologies ever since, what a deal they must know. Colonel Newcomb was admitted to see his nieces, and consummate virtue. Their parent. Maria was charmed to see her brother-in-law. She greeted him with reproachful tenderness. Why, why, her fine eyes seemed to say, have you suddenly collected us? Do you think because I am wise and gifted and good, and you are, it must be confessed, a poor creature with no education, I am not also affable?
Come, Let the prodigal be welcomed by his virtuous relatives. Come and lunch with us, Colonel. He sat down accordingly to the family Tiffin. When the meal was over, the mother, who had matter of importance to impart to him, besought him to go to the drawing-room, and there poured out the eulogy upon her children's qualities, as fond mothers know how to utter. They knew this, and they knew that. They were instructed by the most eminent professors. That wretched Frenchwoman, whom you may remember here, Mademoiselle Lenore. Maria remarked parenthetically. Turned out, oh, frightfully. She taught the girls the worst accent, it appears. Her father was not a colonel, he was. Oh, never mind. It is a mercy I got rid of that fiendish woman, and before my precious ones knew what she was.
and then followed details of the perfections of the two girls, with occasional side shots at Lady Anne's family, just as in the old time. Why don't you bring your boy, whom I have always loved as the son, and who avoids me? Why does not Clive know his cousins? They are very different from others of his kin's women, who think best of the heartless world. I fear, Maria. There is too much truth in what you say, says the Colonel, drumming on a book on the drawing-room table, and looking down, sees it is a great, large, square, gilt peerage, open at Farentosh, Marquis of... Fergus Angus Malcolm Mungo Roy, Marquis of Farentosh, Earl of Glenlivet, in the peerage of Scotland, also Earl of Rossmont, And that of the United Kingdom, son of Angus Fergus Malcolm, Earl of Glenlivet, and grandson and heir of Malcolm Mungo Angus, first Marquis of Farantosh, and 25th Earl, et cetera, et cetera.
You have heard the news regarding Ethel, remarks Hobson. I have just heard, says the poor Colonel. I have a letter from Anne this morning, Maria continues. They are, of course, delighted with the match. Lloyd Farentaugh is wealthy, handsome, has been a little wild, I hear, is not such a husband as I would choose for my darlings. But poor Brian's family have been educated to love the world, and Ethel, no doubt, is flattered by the prospects before her. I have heard that someone else with a little esprit in that quarter had just clod bare the nose, my dear Colonel. He has long expected it, says the Colonel Rising, and I left him very cheerful at breakfast this morning. Send him to see us, the naughty boy cries Maria.
We don't change. We remember old times. To us he will ever be welcome. And with this confirmation of Madame de Florac's news, Thomas Newcomb walked sadly homeward. And now Thomas Newcomb had to break the news to his son. who received the shot in such a way as caused his friends and confidants to admire his high spirit. He said he had long been expecting some such announcement. It was many months since Ethel had prepared him for it. Under her peculiar circumstances, he did not see how she could act otherwise than she had done. And he narrated to the colonel the substance of the conversation which the two young people had had together several months before. in Madame de Florac's garden. Clive's father did not tell his son of his own bootless negotiation with Barnes Newcomb.
There was no need to recall that now, but the colonel's wrath against his nephew exploded in conversation with me, who was the confidant of father and son in this business. Ever since that luckless day when Barnes thought proper to, to give a wrong address for Lady Q, Thomas Newcomb's anger had been growing. He smothered it yet for a while, sent a letter to Lady Anne Newcomb, briefly congratulating her on the choice which he had heard Miss Newcomb had made. And in acknowledgment of Madame de Florek's more sentimental epistle, he wrote a reply which has not been preserved, but in which he bade her rebuke Miss Newcomb for not having answered him when he wrote to her. And not having acquainted her old uncle with her projected union.
To this message, Ethel wrote back a brief, hurried reply. It said, I saw Madame de Florac last night at her daughter's reception, and she gave me my dear uncle's message. Yes, the news is true, which you have heard from Madame de Florac and in Bryan Stone Square. I did not like to write it to you. Because I know one whom I regard as a brother, and a great, great deal better, and to whom I know it will give pain. He knows that I have done my duty, and why I have acted as I have done. God bless him and his dear father. What is this about a letter which I never answered? Grandmama knows nothing about a letter. Mama has enclosed to me that which you wrote to her. But there has been no letter from T.N.
to his sincere and affectionate E.N. Rude de Rivoli, Friday. This was too much, and the cup of Thomas Newcomb's wrath overflowed. Barnes had lied about Ethel's visit to London. Barnes had lied in saying that he delivered the message with which his uncle charged him. Barnes had lied about the letter which he had received, and never sent. With these accusations firmly proven in his mind against his nephew, the colonel went down to confront that sinner. Wherever he should find Barnes, Thomas Newcomb was determined to tell him his mind. Should they meet on the steps of a church, on the flags of change, or in the newspaper room at Bays' at evening paper time, when men must do congregate? Thomas the colonel was determined upon exposing and chastising his father's grandson.
With Ethel's letter in his pocket, he took his way into the city, penetrated into the unsuspecting back parlor of Hobson's bank, and was disappointed at first at only finding his half-brother Hobson there, engaged over his newspaper. The colonel signified his wish to see Sir Barnes Newcomb. Sir Barnes has not come in yet. You've heard about the marriage, says Hobson. Great news for the Barneses, ain't it? The head of the house is as proud as a peacock about it. Said he was coming out to Samuels, the diamond merchants, going to make his sister some uncommon fine present. Jolly to be uncle to a Marquis, ain't it, Colonel? I'll have nothing under a duke for my girls, I say. I know whose nose is out of joint, but young fellows get over these things.
And Clive won't die this time, I dare say. While Hobson Newcomb made these satiric and facetious remarks, his half-brother paced up and down the glass parlor, scowling over the panes into the bank where the busy young clerks sate before their ledgers. At last, he gave an ah as of satisfaction. Indeed, he had seen Sir Barnes Newcomb enter into the bank. The baronet stopped and spoke with the clerk, and presently entered, followed by that young gentleman, into his private parlor. Barnes tried to grin when he saw his uncle, and held out his hand to greet the colonel. But the colonel put both his behind his back. That which carried his faithful bamboo cane shook nervously. Barnes was aware that the colonel had the news.
I was going to. "'To write to you this morning with, with some intelligence that I am very, very sorry to give.' "'This young gentleman is one of your clerks,' asked Thomas Newcomb, blandly. "'Yes, Mr. Boldby, who has your private account. "'This is Colonel Newcomb, Mr. Boldby,' says Sir Barnes in some wonder. "'Mr. Boldby, Brother Hobson.' You heard what Sir Barnes-Newcomb said just now, respecting certain intelligence which you agreed to give me. At this, the three other gentlemen respectively wore looks of amazement. Allow me to say in your presence that I don't believe one single word Sir Barnes-Newcomb says, when he tells me that he is very sorry for some intelligence he has to communicate.
He lies, Mr. Boltzby. He is very glad. I made up my mind that in whatsoever company I met him, and on the very first day I found him. Hold your tongue, sir. You shall speak afterwards and tell more lies when I have done. I made up my mind, I say, that on the very first occasion I would tell Sir Barnes Newcomb that he was a liar and a cheat. He takes charge of letters and keeps them back. Did you break the seal, sir? There was nothing to steal in my letter to Miss Newcomb. He tells me people are out of town when he goes to see in the next street, after leaving my table, and whom I see myself half an hour before he lies to me about their absence. "'Dang you! Go out, and don't stand staring there, you booby!' screams out Mr.
Barnes to the clerk. "'Stop, Boltby!' Colonel Newcomb, unless you leave this room, I shall. I shall. You shall call a policeman. Send for the gentleman, and I will tell the Lord Mayor what I think of Sir Barnes Newcomb, Baronet. Mr. Boldby, shall we have the constable in? Sir, you are an old man, and my father's brother. Oh, you know very well I would. You would what, sir? Upon my word, Barnes Newcomb, here the Colonel's two hands and the bamboo cane came from the rear and formed in front. But that you are my father's grandson, after a menace like that, I would take you out and cane you in the presence of your clerks. I repeat, sir, that I consider you guilty of treachery, falsehood, and knavery.
And if I ever see you at Bayes' Club, I will make the same statement to your acquaintance at the west end of the town. A man of your baseness ought to be known, sir, and it shall be my business to make men of honor aware of your character. Mr. Poldsby, will you have the kindness to make out my account? Sir Barnes Newcomb, for fear of consequences that I should deplore, I recommend you to keep a wide berth of me, sir. And the Colonel twirled his mustachios, and weighed his cane in an ominous manner, and Barnes started back spontaneously out of its dangerous circle. What Mr. Boldby's sentiments may have been regarding this extraordinary scene, in which his principal cut so sorry a figure, whether he narrated the conversation to other gentlemen connected with the establishment of Hobson Brothers, or prudently kept it to himself, I cannot say.
having no means of pursuing Mr. B.'s subsequent career. He speedily quitted his desk at Hobson Brothers, and let us presume that Barnes thought Mr. B. had told all the other clerks of the avuncular quarrel. That conviction will make us imagine Barnes still more uncomfortable. Hobson Newcomb no doubt was rejoiced at Barnes's discomfiture. He had been so insolent and domineering beyond measure of late to his vulgar good-natured uncle, whereas after the above interview with the Colonel, he became very humble and quiet in his demeanor, and for a long, long time never said a rude word. Nay, I fear Hobson must have carried an account of the transaction to Mrs. Hobson and the circle in Bryanstone Square.
But Sam Newcomb, now entered a Cambridge called the Baronet Barnes quite familiarly, asked about Clara and Ethel, and requested a small loan of Barnes. Of course, the story did not get wind at Baze's. Of course, Tom Eves did not know all about it, and say that Sir Barnes had been beaten black and blue. Having been treated very ill by the committee in a complaint which he made about the club cookery, Sir Barnes Newcomb never came to Bases, and at the end of the year took off his name from the list of the club. Sir Barnes, though a little taken aback in the morning, and not ready with an impromptu reply to the colonel and his cane, could not allow the occurrence to pass without a protest. and indicted a letter, which Thomas Newcomb kept along with some others previously quoted by the compiler of the present memoirs.
It is as follows. Belgrub Street, February 15, 18, blank. Colonel Newcomb, C.B., Private. Sir, the incredible insolence and violence of your behavior today. Inspired by whatever causes of mistakes of your own, cannot be passed without some comment on my part. I laid before a friend of your own profession a statement of the words which you applied to me in the presence of my partner and one of my clerks this morning, and my advisor is of opinion that considering the relationship unhappily subsisting between us, I can take no notice "'Of insults for which you knew when you uttered them. I could not call you to account.' "'There is some truth in that,' said the Colonel. "'He couldn't fight, you know.
But then he was such a liar I could not help speaking my mind.' "'I gathered from the brutal language which you thought fit to employ towards a disarmed man, the ground of one of your monstrous accusations against me.' That I deceived you in stating that my relative, Lady Q, was in the country when in fact she was at her house in London. To this absurd charge, I at once plead guilty. The venerable lady in question was passing through London, where she decided to be free from intrusion. At her ladyship's wish, I stated that she was out of town, and would, under the same circumstances, unhesitatingly make the same statement. Your slight acquaintance with the person in question did not warrant that you should force yourself on her privacy, as you would doubtless know were you more familiar with the customs of the society in which she moves.
I declare upon my honor as a gentleman that I gave her the message which I promised to deliver from you, and also that I transmitted a letter with which you entrusted me. And repel with scorn and indignation the charges which you were pleased to bring against me, as I treat with contempt the language and the threats which you thought fit to employ. Our books show the amount of x pounds, x shillings, x pence to your credit, which you will be good enough to withdraw at your earliest convenience, as, of course, all intercourse must cease henceforth between you and me. Yours, etc. B. Newcomb Newcomb. "'I think, sir, he doesn't make out a bad case,' Mr. Pendennis remarked to the Colonel, who showed him this majestic letter.
"'It would be a good case if I believed a single word of it, Arthur,' replied my friend, placidly twirling the old grey moustache. "'If you were to say so-and-so, and say that I had brought false charges against you.'" I should cry, mea culpa, and apologize with all my heart. But as I have a perfect conviction that every word this fellow says is a lie, what is the use of arguing any more about the matter? I would not believe him if he brought twenty as witnesses, and if he lied till he was black in the other liar's face. Give me the walnuts. I wonder who Sir Barnes' military friend was. Barnes's military friend was our galant acquaintance, General Sir George Tuftoe, K.C.B., who a short while afterwards talked over the quarrel with the colonel, and manfully told him that, in Sir George's opinion, he was wrong.
The little beggar behaved very well, I thought, in the first business. You bullied him so, and in the front of his regiment, too. There was almost past bearing. And when he deplored, with tears in his eyes, almost the little humbug, that his relationship prevented him calling you out, he got it. I believed him. It was in the second affair that poor little Barnes showed he was a cocktail. "'What second affair?' asked Thomas Newcomb. "'Don't you know? He, he, this is famous,' cried Sir George. "'Why, sir, Two days after your business, he comes to me with another letter and a face as long as my mare's by Jove. And that letter, Newcomb, was from your young'un. Stop! Here it is! And from his padded bosom, General Sir George Tuftoe drew a pocketbook.
And from the pocketbook, a copy of a letter inscribed, Clive Newcomb, Esquire, to Sir B. N. Newcomb. There's no mistake about your fellow colonel. No, him. And the man of war fired a volley of oaths as a salute to Clive. And the Colonel, on horseback, riding by the other cavalry officers' side, read as follows. George Street, Hanover Square, February 16th. Sir, Colonel Newcomb this morning showed me a letter bearing your signature, in which you state One, that Colonel Newcomb has uttered calumnious and insolent charges against you. Two, that Colonel Newcomb so spoke, knowing that you could take no notice of his charges of falsehood and treachery on account of the relationships assisting between you.
Your statements would evidently imply that Colonel Newcomb has been guilty of ungentlemanlike conduct and of cowardice towards you. As there can be no reason why we should not meet in any manner that you desire, I here beg leave to state, on my own part, that I fully coincide with Colonel Newcomb in his opinion that you have been guilty of falsehood and treachery, and that the charge of cowardice, which you dare to make against a gentleman of his tried honor and courage, is another willful and cowardly falsehood on your part. And I hope you will refer the bearer of this note, my friend, Mr. George Warrington of the Upper Temple, to the military gentleman whom you consulted in respect to the just charges of Colonel Newcomb, waiting a prompt reply.
Believe me, sir, your obedient servant Clive Newcomb, Sir Barnes Newcomb, Newcomb Bart, M. P., etc. What a blunderhead I am, cries the Colonel, with delight on his countenance, spite of his professed repentance. It never once entered my head that the youngster would take any part in the affair. I showed him his cousin's letter casually, just to amuse him, I think, for he has been deuced low lately, about a young man's scrape that he has got into, and he must have gone off and dispatched his challenge straightway. I recollect he appeared uncommonly brisk at breakfast the next morning. And so you say, General, the baronet did not like the poulet? By no means. Never saw a fellow show such a confounded white feather.
At first I congratulated him, thinking your boys often must please him, as it would have pleased any fellow in our time to have a shot. Dammy, but I was mistaken in my man. He entered into some confounded, long-winded story about a marriage you wanted to make with that infernal pretty sister of his, who was going to marry young Farentosh, and how you were in a rage because the scheme fell to the ground, and how a family duel might occasion unpleasantries to Miss Newcomb, though I showed him how this could be most easily avoided, and that the lady's name need never appear in the transaction. "'Confound it, Sir Barnes,' says I. "'I recollect this boy, when he was a youngster throwing a glass of wine in your face.
We'll put it upon that, and say it's an old feud between you. He turned quite pale, and he said your fellow had apologized for the glass of wine.' "'Yes,' said the colonel sadly, "'my boy apologized for the glass of wine. It is curious how we have disliked that Barnes.' Ever since we set eyes on him. While Newcomb Sir George resumed, as his metalled charger suddenly jumped and curvetted, displaying the padded warrior's cavalry seat to perfection. Quiet, old lady. Easy, my dear. Well, when I found the little beggar turning tail in this way, I said to him, Dash me, sir, if you don't want me. Why the dash do you send for me? Dash me. "'Yesterday you talked as if you would bite the colonel's head off, and today, when a son offers you every accommodation, by dash, sir, you're afraid to meet him.
It's my belief you had better send for a policeman. A twenty-two is your man, Sir Barnes Newcomb.' And with that I turned on my heel and left him, and the fellow went off to Newcomb that very night." "'A poor devil can't command courage,'' said the Colonel, "'quite peaceably, any more than he can make himself six feet high.' "'Then why the dash did the beggar send for me?' called out General Sir George Tufto, in a loud and resolute voice, and presently the two officers parted company. When the Colonel reached home, Mr. Warrington and Mr. Pendennis happened to be on a visit to Clive. And all three were in the young fellow's painting room. We knew our lad was unhappy, and did our little best to amuse and console him.
The Colonel came in. It was in the dark February days. We lighted the gas in the studio. Clive had made a sketch from some favorite verses of mine and George's, those charming lines of Scots. He turned his charger as he spake, beside the river shore. He gave his bridal rain a shake. With adieu forevermore. My dear, adieu forevermore. Thomas Newcomb held up a finger at Warrington, and he came to the picture and looked at it, and George and I trolled out, adieu forevermore, my dear, adieu forevermore. From the picture, the brave old colonel turned to the painter, regarding his son with a look of beautiful, inexpressible affection, and he laid his hand on his son's shoulder. And smiled and stroked Clive's yellow mustache.
And, Eddin, did Barnes send no answer to that letter you wrote him? He said slowly. Clive broke out into a laugh that was almost a sob. He took both his father's hands. My dear, dear old father, says he, what a, what a old trump you are. My eyes were so dim I could hardly see the two men as they embraced.
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54 54 - Chapter 54: Has a Tragical Ending 20:16
Clive presently answered the question which his father put to him in the last chapter by producing from the ledge of his easel a crumpled paper full of Cavendish now, but on which was written Sir Barnes Newcomb's reply to his cousin's polite invitation. Sir Barnes Newcomb wrote that he thought a reference to a friend was quite unnecessary. In the most disagreeable and painful dispute in which Mr. Clive desired to interfere as a principal, that the reasons which prevented Sir Barnes from taking notice of Colonel Newcomb's shameful and ungentlemanlike conduct applied equally, as Mr. Clive Newcomb very well knew. to himself, that if further insult was offered, or outrage attempted, Sir Barnes should resort to the police with protection, that he was about to quit London, and certainly should not delay his departure on account of Mr.
Clive Newcomb's monstrous proceedings, and that he desired to take leave of an odious subject. As of an individual whom he had striven to treat with kindness, but from whom, from youth upwards, Sir Barnes Newcomb had received nothing but insolence, enmity, and ill will. "'He is an ill man to offend,' remarked Mr. Pendennis. "'I don't think he has ever forgiven that claret, Clive.' Poo!" The few dates from long before that, said Clive. Barnes wanted to lick me when I was a boy, and I declined. In fact, I think he had rather the worst of it. But then I operated freely on his shins, and that wasn't fair in war, you know. Heaven forgive me, cries the Colonel. I have always felt the fellow was my enemy, and my mind is relieved now war is declared.
It has been a kind of hypocrisy with me to shake his hand and eat his dinner. When I trusted him, it was against my better instinct, and I have been struggling against it these ten years, thinking it was a wicked prejudice and ought to be overcome. Why should we overcome such instincts? asks Mr. Warrington. Why shouldn't we hate what is hateful in people, and scorn what is mean? From what friend Penn had described to me, and from some other accounts which have come to my ears, your respectable nephew is about as loathsome a little villain as crawls on the earth. Good seems to be out of his sphere, and away from his contemplation. He ill-treats everyone he comes near. Or, if gentle to them, it is that they may serve some base purpose.
Since my attention has been drawn to the creature, I have been contemplating his ways with wonder and curiosity. How much superior nature's rogues are, Penn, to the villains you novelists put into your books. This man goes about his life business with unnatural propensity to darkness and evil. As a bug crawls and stings and stinks. I don't suppose the fellow feels any more remorse than a cat that runs away with a mutton chop. I recognize the evil spirit, sir, and do honor to Amoramus. In taking off my hat to this young man, he seduced a poor girl in his father's country town. Is it not natural? Deserted her and her children. Don't you recognize the beast? Married for rank. Could you expect otherwise from him?
Invites my lord Highgate to his house, in consideration of his balance at the bank. Sir, unless somebody's heels shall crunch him on the way, there is no height to which this aspiring vermin mayn't crawl. I look to see Sir Barnes Newcomb prosper more and more. I make no doubt he will die an immense capitalist, an exalted peer of this realm. He will have a marble monument and a pathetic funeral sermon. There is a divine in your family, Clive, that shall preach it. I will weep respectful tears over the grave of Baron Newcomb, by Count Newcomb, Earl Newcomb, and the children whom he has deserted. And who, in the course of time, will be sent by a grateful nation to New South Wales, will proudly say to their brother convicts, Yes, the Earl was our honored father.
I fear he is no better than he should be, Mr. Warrington, says the Colonel, shaking his head. I never heard the story about the deserted children. How should you? Oh, you guileless man, cries Warrington. I am not in the ways of scandal-hearing myself much, but this tale I had from Sir Barnes Newcomb's own country. Mr. Batters of the Newcomb Independent is my esteemed client. I write leading articles for his newspaper, and when he was in town last spring, he favored me with the anecdote and proposed to amuse the member for Newcomb by publishing it in his journal. This kind of writing is not much in my line, and out of respect to you and your young one, I believe, I strove with Mr. Batters and entreated him and prevailed with him not to publish the story.
That is how I came to know of it. I say it with the Colonel in the evening when he commented on Warrington's story and Sir Barnes' adventures in his simple way. He said his brother Hobson had been with him this morning, after the dispute, reiterating Barnes's defense of his conduct, and professing on his own part nothing but goodwill towards his brother. Between ourselves, the young baronet carries matters with rather a high hand sometimes, and I am not sorry that you gave him a little dressing. But you were too hard upon him, Colonel. Really, you were. Had I known that child-deserting story, I would have given it harder still, sir," says Thomas Newcomb, twirling his mustachios. But my brother had nothing to do with the quarrel, and very rightly did not wish to engage in it.
He has an eye to business, has Master Hobson, too," my friend continued. For he brought me a check for my private account, which, of course, he said, could not remain after my quarrel with Barnes. But the Indian bank account, which is pretty large, he supposed need not be taken away. And indeed, why should it? So that, which is little business of mine, remains where it was, and Brother Hobson and I remain perfectly good friends. I think Clive is better since he has been quite put out of his suspense. He speaks with a great deal more kindness and good nature about the marriage than I am disposed to feel regarding it, and depend on it has too high a spirit to show that he is beaten. But I know he is a good deal cut up, though he says nothing, and he agreed willingly enough to take a little journey.
Arthur, and be out of the way when this business takes place. We shall go to Paris. I don't know where else besides. These misfortunes do good in one way. Hard as they are to bear, they unite people who love each other. It seems to me my boy has been nearer to me, and likes his old father better than he has done of late. And very soon after this talk, our friends departed. The Bulgarian minister having been recalled, and Lady Anne Newcomb's house in Park Lane being vacant, her ladyship and her family come to occupy the mansion for this eventful season, and stay once more in the dismal dining room under the picture of the defunct Sir Brian. A little of the splendor and hospitality of old days was revived in the house.
Entertainments were given by Lady Anne. And, amongst other festivities, a fine ball took place, when pretty Miss Alice, Miss Ethel's younger sister, made her first appearance in the world, to which she was afterwards to be presented by the Marchioness of Parentosh. All the little sisters were charmed, no doubt, that the beautiful Ethel was to become a beautiful Marchioness, who, as they came up to womanhood one after another, would introduce them severally to amiable young earls, dukes, and marquises, when they would be married off and wear coronets and diamonds of their own right. At Lady Anne's ball, I saw my acquaintance, young Mumford, who was going to Oxford next October and about to leave rugby, where he was at the head of the school, looking very dismal as Miss Alice whirled around the room dancing in Viscount Bustington's arms.
Miss Alice, with whose mama he used to take tea at rugby, And for whose pretty sake Mumford did Alfred Newcombe's verses for him and let him off his thrashings. Poor Mumford! He dismally went about under the protection of young Alfred, a fourth-form boy. Not one soul did he know in that rattling London ballroom. His young face, as white as the large white tie, dawned two hours since at the tapestock with such nervousness and beating of heart. With these lads, and decorated with the tie equally splendid, moved about young Sam Newcomb, who was shirking from his sister and his mamma. Mrs. Hobson had actually assumed clean gloves for this festive occasion. Sam stared at all the knobs, and insisted upon being introduced to Farentosh, and congratulated his lordship with much graceful ease, and then pushed about the rooms, perseveringly hanging on to Alfred's jacket.
I say, I wish you wouldn't call me Al, I heard Mr. Alfred say to his cousin. Seeing my face, Mr. Samuel ran up to claim acquaintance. He was good enough to say he thought Farentosh seemed devilish haughty. Even my wife could not help saying that Mr. Sam was an odious little creature. So it was for young Alfred and his brothers and sisters who would want help and protection in the world that Ethel was about to give up her independence, her inclination perhaps, and to bestow her life on yonder young nobleman. Looking at her as a girl devoting herself to her family, her sacrifice gave her a melancholy interest in our eyes. My wife and I watched her, grave and beautiful, moving through the rooms, receiving and returning a hundred greetings, bending to compliments, talking with this friend and that, with my lord's lordly relations, with himself, to whom she listened differentially.
Faintly smiling as he spoke now and again, doing the honors of her mother's house. Lady after lady of his George Shipps clan and kinsfolk complimented the girl and her pleased mother. Oh, Lady Q was radiant, if one can call radiance the glances of those darkling old eyes. She stayed in a little room apart, and thither people went to pay their court to her. Unwillingly, I came in on this levee with my wife on my arm. Lady Q scowled at me over her crutch, but without a sign of recognition. "'What an awful countenance that old woman has,' Laura whispered as we retreated out of that gloomy presence. "'And doubt, as its wont is, whispered, too, a question in my ear. Is it for her brothers and sisters only that Miss Ethel is sacrificing herself?
Is it not for the coronet, and the triumph, and the fine houses? When two motives may actuate a friend, we surely may try and believe in the good ones, says Laura. But—but I am glad Clive does not marry her, poor fellow. He would not have been happy with her. She belongs to this great world. She has spent all her life in it. Clive would have entered into it very likely in her train. And you know, sir, it is not good that we should be our husband's superiors, adds Mrs. Laura with a curtsy. She presently pronounced that the air was very hot in the rooms, and in fact wanted to go home to see her child. As we passed out, we saw Sir Barnes Newcomb. eagerly smiling, smirking, bowing, and in the fondest conversation with his sister and Lord Farentauch.
By Sir Barnes presently brushed Lieutenant General Sir George Tufto, KCB, who, when he saw on whose foot he had trodden, grunted out, and turning his back on Barnes, forthwith began complimenting Ethel and the Marquis. Served with your lordship's father in Spain. Glad to make your lordship's acquaintance, says Sir George. Ethel bows to us as we pass out of the rooms, and we hear no more of Sir George's conversation. In the cloakroom sits Lady Clara Newcomb, with a gentleman bending over her, just as in such an attitude as the bride is in Hogarth's marriage a la mode, as the counselor talks to her. Lady Clara starts up as a crowd of blushes come into her wan face, and tries to smile, and rises to greet my wife, and says something about its being so dreadfully hot in the upper rooms, and so very tedious waiting for the carriages.
The gentleman advances towards me with the military stride, and says, "'How do you do, Mr. Pendennis? How's our young friend the painter?' I answer, Lord Highgate, civilly enough, whereas my wife will scarce speak a word in reply to Lady Clara Newcombe. Lady Clara asked us to her ball, which my wife declined altogether to attend. Sir Barnes published a series of quite splendid entertainments on the happy occasion of his sister's betrothal. We read the names of all the clan parentage in the morning post as attending these banquets. Mr. and Mrs. Hobson-Newcomb in Brunstone Square gave also signs of rejoicing at their niece's marriage. They had a grand banquet, followed by a tea, to which latter amusement the present biographer was invited, Lady Anne and Lady Q and her granddaughter, and the baronet and his wife.
And my Lord Highgate and Sir George Tufto attended the dinner, but it was rather a damp entertainment. Farentosh, whispers Sam Newcomb, sent word just before dinner that he had a sore throat, and Barnes was as sulky as possible. Sir George wouldn't speak to him, and the Dowager wouldn't speak to Lord Highgate. Scarcely anything was drank, concluded Mr. Sam, with a slight hiccup. I say, Pendennis, how sold Clive will be! And the amiable youth went off to consume with others of his parents' guests. Thus the Newcombs entertained the Farentoshes, and the Farentoshes entertained the Newcombs, and the Dowager Countess of Kew went from assembly to assembly every evening, and to jewelers and upholsterers and dressmakers every morning.
And Lord Farentaush's townhouse was splendidly redecorated in the newest fashion, and he seemed to grow more and more attentive as the happy day approached. And he gave away all his cigars to his brother Rob, and his sisters were delighted with Ethel, and constantly in her company. And his mother was pleased with her, and thought a girl of her spirit and resolution would make a good wife for her son. And select crowds flocked to see the service of plate at Handyman's, and the diamonds which were being set for the lady. And Smee, R.A., painted her portrait as a souvenir for Mama when Miss Newcomb should be Miss Newcomb no more. And Lady Q. made a will, leaving all she could leave to her beloved granddaughter, Ethel.
Daughter of the late Sir Brian Newcomb, baronet, and Lord Q wrote an affectionate letter to his cousin, congratulating her and wishing her happiness with all his heart. And I was glancing over the Times newspaper at breakfast one morning when I laid it down with an exclamation, which caused my wife to start with surprise. What is it? cries Laura. And I read as follows. of the Countess Dowager of Kew. We regret to have to announce the awfully sudden death of this venerable lady. Her ladyship, who had been at several parties of the nobility the night before, seemingly in perfect health, was seized with a fit as she was waiting for her carriage, and about to quit Lady Balgrave's assembly. Immediate medical assistance was procured, and her ladyship was carried to her own house in Queen Street, Mayfair.
But she never rallied, or we believe spoke, after the first fatal seizure, and sank at eleven o'clock last evening. The deceased Louisa Joanna Gaunt, widow of Frederick, first Earl of Kew, was daughter of Charles, Earl of Gaunt. And sister of the late and aunt of the present Marquis of Steyn. The present Earl of Kew is her ladyship's grandson, his lordship father, Lord Wallum, having died before his own father, the first Earl. Many noble families are placed in mourning by this sad event. Society has to deplore the death of a lady, who has been its ornament for more than half a century. And who was known, we may say, throughout Europe for her remarkable sense, extraordinary memory, and brilliant wit.
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55 55 - Chapter 55: Barnes's Skeleton Closet 29:16
Barnes's Skeleton Closet. The demise of Lady Q, of course, put a stop for a while to the matrimonial project so interesting to the House of Newcomb. Hyman blew his torch out, put it into the cupboard for use on a future day, and exchanged his garish, saffron-colored robe for decent temporary mourning. Charles Honeyman improved the occasion at Lady Whittlesey's chapel hard by, and death At the festival was one of his most thrilling sermons, reprinted at the request of some of the congregation. There were those of his flock, especially a pair, whose quarter of the fold was the organ loft, who were always charmed with the piping of that melodious pastor. Shall we, too? While the coffin yet rests on the earth's outer surface, enter the chapel, whither these void remains of our dear sister departed, are borne by the smug undertaker's gentlemen, and pronounce an elegy over that bedizened box of corruption.
When the young is stricken down, And their roses nipped in an hour by the destroying blight. Even the stranger can sympathize, who counts the scant years on the gravestone, or reads the notice in the newspaper corner. The contrast forces itself on you. A fair young creature, bright and blooming yesterday, distributing smiles, levying homage, inspiring desire, conscious of her power to charm, and gay, with the natural enjoyment of her conquests. Who in his walk through the world has not looked on many such a one? And at the notion of her sudden call away from beauty, triumph, pleasure, her helpless outcries during her short pain, her vain pleas for little respite, her sentence, and its execution, has not felt a shock of pity.
When the days of a long life come to its close, And a white head sinks to rise no more. We bow our own with respect as the morning train passes, and salute the heraldry and devices of yonder pomp, as symbols of age, wisdom, deserved respect and merited honor, long experience of suffering and action. The wealth he may have achieved is the harvest which he sowed, the titles on his hearse, Fruits of the field he bravely and laboriously wrought in, but to live to fourscore years, and be found dancing among the idle virgins, to have had near a century of allotted time, and then be called away from the giddy notes of a mayfair fiddle, to have to yield your roses, too, and then drop out of the bony clutch of your old fingers a wreath that came from a Parisian bear box.
One fancies around some graves unseen troops of mourners waiting. Many and many a poor pensioner trooping to the place. Many weeping charities. Many kind actions. Many dear friends, beloved and deplored, rising up at the toll of that bell to follow the honored hearse. Dead parents waiting above and calling, Come, daughter! Lost children! Heaven's fondlings, hovering round like cherubim, and whispering, Welcome, Mother. Here is one who reposes after a long feast, where no love has been, after girlhood without kindly maternal nurture, marriage without affection, matronhood without its precious griefs and joys, after fourscore years of lonely vanity. Let us take off our hats to that procession, too, as it passes, admiring the different lots awarded to the children of men, and the various usages to which heaven puts its creatures.
Leave we yonder velvet-palled box, spangled with fantastic heraldry, and containing within the aged sloth an envelope of a soul gone to render its account. Look, rather, at the living audience standing round the show, the deep grief on Barnes-Nilcomb's fine countenance, the sadness depicted in the face of the most noble, the Marquis of Farentauche, the sympathy of her ladyship's medical man, who came in the third morning carriage. Better than these, the awe and reverence and emotion exhibited in the kind face of one of the witnesses of this scene. As he listens to those words which the priest rehearses over our dead. What magnificent words! What a burning faith! What a glorious triumph! What a heroic life, death, hope they record!
They are read over all of us alike, as the sun shines on just and unjust. We have all of us heard them. And I have fancied for my part that they fell and smote like the sods on the coffin. The ceremony over, the undertaker's gentlemen clamber on the roof of the vacant hearse, into which palls, trestles, trays of feathers are inserted, and the horses break out into a trot, and the empty carriage, expressing the deep grief of the deceased lady's friends, depart homeward. It is remarked that Lord Q hardly has any communication with his cousin, Sir Barnes Newcomb. His lordship jumps into a cab and goes to the railroad. Issuing from the cemetery, the Marquis of Farentosh hastily orders that thing to be taken off his hat and returns to town in his brogram, smoking a cigar.
Sir Barnes Newcomb rides in the brogram beside Lord Farentosh as far as Oxford Street. A very short time previous to her demise, Mr. Rude, that was Mr. Rude, that other little gentleman in black, who shared the third morning coach along with her ladyship's medical man. had executed a will by which almost all the countess's property was devised to her granddaughter, Ethel Newcomb. Lady Q.'s deceased, of course, delayed the marriage projects for a while. The young heiress returned to her mother's house in Park Lane, I dare say the deep morning habiliments in which the domestics of that establishment appeared were purchased out of the funds left in his hands, which Ethel's banker and brother had at her disposal.
Sir Barnes Newcomb, who was one of the trustees of his sister's property, Grumbled, no doubt, because his grandmother had bequeathed to him but a paltry recompense of 500 pounds for his pains and trouble of trusteeship. But his manner to Ethel was extremely bland and respectful, an heiress now, and to be a marchioness in a few months. Sir Barnes treated her with a very different regard to that which he was accustomed to show to other members of his family. For while this worthy baronet would contradict his mother at every word she uttered, and take no pains to disguise his opinion that Lady Anne's intellect was of the very poorest order, he would listen deferentially to Ethel's smallest observations, exert himself to amuse her under her grief, which he chose to take for granted was very severe, visit her constantly, and show the most charming solicitude for her general comfort and welfare.
During this time, my wife received constant notes from Ethel Newcomb, and the intimacy between the two ladies much increased. Laura was so unlike the women of Ethel's circle. The young lady was pleased to say that to be with her was Ethel's greatest comfort. Miss Newcomb was now her own mistress, had her carriage, and would drive day after day to our cottage at Richmond. The Fuget Society of Lord Farentausch's sisters, the conversation of his mother, did not amuse Ethel, and she escaped from both with her usual impatience of control. She was at home every day dutifully to receive my Lord's visits. But though she did not open her mind to Laura as freely regarding the young gentleman as she did when the character and disposition of her future mother and sisters-in-law was the subject of their talk, I could see, from the grave look of commiseration, which my wife's face bore after her young friend's visits, at Mrs.
Pendennis, argued rather ill of the future happiness of this betrothed pair. Once, at Miss Newcomb's special request, I took my wife to see her in Park Lane, where the Marquis of Farentoche found us. His Lordship and I had already a half-acquaintance, which was not, however, improved after my regular presentation to him by Miss Newcomb. He scowled at me, with a countenance indicative of anything but welcome, and did not seem in the least more pleased when Ethel entreated her friend Laura not to take her bonnet, not to think of going away so soon. She came to see us the very next day, stayed much longer with us than usual, and returned to town quite late in the evening, in spite of the entreaties of the inhospitable Laura, who would have had her leave us long before.
"'I am sure,' says Cleared-sighted Mrs. Laura, "'she has come out of bravado, and after we went away yesterday that there were words between her and Lord Farentosh on our account.' "'Confound the young man,' breaks out Mr. Pendennis in a fume. "'What does he mean by his insolent airs?' "'He may think we are partisans de letra.' says Mrs. Pendennis, with a smile first and a sigh afterwards, as she said, "'Poor Clive!' "'Do you ever talk about Clive?' asks the husband. "'Never. Once, twice, perhaps in the most natural manner in the world, we mention where he is, but nothing further passes. The subject is a sealed one between us. She often looks at his drawings in my album.' Clive had drawn our baby there, and its mother in a great variety of attitudes, and gazes at a sketch of his dear old father, but of him she never says a word.
So it is best, says Mr. Pendennis. Yes, best, echoes Laura with a sigh. You think Laura continues the husband? You think she—she what? What did Mr. Pendennis mean? Laura, his wife, certainly understood him, though upon my conscience the sentence went no further, for she answered at once. Yes, I think she certainly did, poor boy, but that, of course, is over now, and Ethel, though she cannot help being a worldly woman, has such firmness and resolution of character, that if she has once determined to conquer any inclination of that sort, I am sure she will master it. And make Lord Farentoche a very good wife. Since the Colonel's quarrel with Sir Barnes, cries Mr. Pendennis, adverting by a natural transition from Ethel to her amiable brother, our banking friend does not invite us anymore.
Lady Clara sends you no cards. I have a great mind to withdraw my account. Laura Who understands nothing about accounts, did not perceive the fine irony of this remark. But her face straightway put on the severe expression which she chose to assume whenever Sir Barnes's family was mentioned. And she said, "'My dear, I am very glad indeed that Lady Claris sends us no more of her invitations. You know very well I dislike them.' "'Why?' "'I hear baby crying,' says Laura. Oh, Laura, Laura, how could you tell your husband such a fib? And she quits the room without deigning to give any answer to that why. Let us pay a brief visit to Newcomb in the north of England, and there we may get some answers to the question of which Mr.
Pendennis had just in vain asked a reply from his wife. My design does not include a description of that great and flourishing town of Newcomb. and of the manufactures which caused its prosperity, but only admits of the introduction of those Newcomites who are concerned in the affairs of the family which has given its respectable name to these volumes. Thus, in previous pages, we have said nothing about the mayor and corporation of Newcomb, the magnificent bankers and manufacturers who had their places of business in the town. And there's splendid beers outside its smoky precincts. People who would give their thousand guineas for a picture or a statue, and write you off a check for ten times the amount any day.
People who, if there was a talk of a statue to the Queen or the Duke, would come down to the town hall and subscribe their one, two, three hundred apiece, especially if in the neighboring city of Slocum. where they were putting up a statue to the Duke or the Queen. Not of such men have I spoken, the magnates of the place, but of the humble Sarah Mason in Jubilee Row, of the Reverend Dr. Balders, the vicar, Mr. Vidler, the apothecary, Mr. Puff, the baker, of Tom Potts, the jolly reporter of the Newcomb Independent, and Batters Esquire, the proprietor of that journal. Persons with whom our friends have had already, or will be found presently to have, some connection. And it is from these that we shall arrive at some particulars regarding the Newcomb family, which will show us that they have a skeleton or two in their closets, as well as their neighbors.
Now, how will you have the story? Worthy mamas of families, if you do not like to have your daughters told that bad husbands will make bad wives, that marriages begun in indifference make homes unhappy, that men whom girls are brought to swear to love and honor are sometimes false, selfish, and cruel, and that women forget the oaths which they have been made to swear. If you will not hear of this, ladies, close the book. And send for some other. Banish the newspaper out of your houses, and shut your eyes to the truth, the awful truth, of life and sin. In the world made by Jennys and Jessamys, and Passion, the play of schoolboys and schoolgirls, scribbling valentines and interchanging lollipops.
Is life all over when Jennys and Jessamy are married? And are no subsequent trials, griefs, wars, bitter heart pangs, dreadful temptations, defeats, remorses, sufferings to bear, and dangers to overcome? As you and I, friend, kneel with our children round about us, prostrate before the Father of us all, and asking mercy for miserable sinners, are the young ones to suppose the words of mere form and don't apply to us? To some outcasts in the free seats, probably, or those naughty boys playing in the churchyard, are they not to know that we err to, and pray with all our hearts to be rescued from temptation? If such a knowledge is wrong for them, send them to church apart. Go you and worship in private, or, if not too proud, kneel humbly in the midst of them.
Owning your wrong and praying heaven to be merciful to you, a sinner. When Barnes Newcomb became the reigning prince of the Newcomb family, and after the first agonies of grief for his father's death had subsided, he made strong attempts to conciliate the principal persons in the neighborhood and to render himself popular in the borough. He gave handsome entertainments to the townsfolk and to the country gentry. He tried even to bring those two warring classes together. He endeavored to be civil to the Newcomb Independent, the opposition paper, as well as to the Newcomb Sentinel, that true, old, uncompromising blue. He asked the dissenting clergymen to dinner, and the low church clergymen, as well as the Orthodox Dr.
Balders and his curates. He gave a lecture at the Newcomb Athenium. Which everybody said was very amusing, and which Sentinel and Independent both agreed in praising. Of course, he subscribed to that statue, which, with the Newcomites, were raising, to the philanthropic missions which Reverend Low Church gentlemen were engaged in, to the For the young Newcombite manufacturers are as sporting as any gents in the North. To the hospital, the people's library, the restoration of the rude screen, and the great painted window in Newcomb Old Church, Rev. J. Butters. And he had to pay in fine a most awful price for his privilege of sitting in Parliament as representative of his native place. As he called it in his speeches, the cradle of his forefathers, the home of his race, etc., though Barnes was, in fact, born at Clapham.
Lady Clara could not in the least help this young statesman in his designs upon Newcomb and the Newcombites. After she came into Barnes's hands, a dreadful weight fell upon her. She would smile and simper, and talk kindly and gaily enough at first, during Sir Brian's life, and among women, when Barnes was not present. But as soon as he joined the company, it was remarked that his wife became silent, and looked eagerly towards him whenever he ventured to speak. She blundered, her eyes filled with tears, the little wit she had left in her husband's presence. He grew angry. And tried to hide his anger with a sneer, or broke out with jibe and an oath when he lost patience, and Clara, whimpering, would leave the room.
Everybody at Newcomb knew that Barnes bullied his wife. People had worse charges against Barnes than wife bullying. Do you suppose that little interruption which occurred at Barnes's marriage was not known in Newcomb? His victim had been a Newcomb girl. The man to whom she was betrothed was in a Newcomb factory. When Barnes was a young man, and in his occasional visits to Newcomb, lived along with those dashing young blades Sam Jollyman, Jollyman Brothers and Bocher, Bob Homer, Cross Country Bill, Al Rackner, for whom his father had to pay 18,000 pounds after the ledger, the year Targary won it. And that wild plot. All sorts of stories were told of them, and of Barnes especially. Most of them were settled and steady businessmen by this time.
Al, it was known, had become very serious, besides making his fortune in cotton. Bob Homer managed the bank, and as for S. Jollyman, Mrs. S. J. took uncommon good care that he didn't break out of bounds anymore. Why, he was not even allowed to play a game at billiards, or to dine out without her. I could go on giving you interesting particulars of a hundred members of the Newcomb aristocracy, were not our attention especially directed to one respectable family. All Barnes's endeavors at popularity were vain, partly from his own fault, and partly from the nature of mankind. and of the Newcomb folks especially, whom no single person could possibly conciliate. Thus, suppose he gave the advertisements to the Independent.
The old blue paper, the Sentinel, was very angry. Suppose he asked Mr. Hunch, the dissenting minister, to bless the tablecloth after dinner, as he had begged Dr. Boulders to utter a benediction on the first course. Hunch and Baldis were both angry. He subscribed to the races. What heathenism! To the missionaries. What sanctimonious humbug! And the worst was that Barnes, being young at that time, and not able to keep his tongue in order, could not help saying naught to butt of such and such a man, that he was an infernal ass, or a confounded old idiot, and so forth. Peevish phrases, which undid in a moment the work of a dozen dinners, countless compliments, and months of grinning good humor. Now he is wiser.
He is very proud of being Newcomb of Newcomb, and quite believes that the place is his hereditary principality. But still, he says, his father was a fool for ever representing the borough. "'Danny, sir,' cried Sir Barnes. "'Never sit for a place that lies at your park gates. And above all, never try to conciliate them. Curse them. Hate them well, sir. Take a line, and flog the fellows on the other side. Since I have stayed in Parliament for another place, I have saved myself I don't know how much a year. I never go to high church or low.'" Don't give a shilling to the confounded races, or the infernal soup tickets, or to the miserable missionaries, and at last live in quiet. So, in spite of all his subscriptions and his coaxing of the various orders of Newcombites, Sir Barnes Newcomb was not popular among them, and while he had enemies on all sides, had sturdy friends not even on his own.
Scarce a man, but felt Barnes was laughing at him. Balders in his pulpit, Holder who seconded him in his election. The Newcomb Society, and the ladies, even more than the men, were uneasy under his ominous familiarity, and recovered their good humor when he left them. People felt as if it were a truce only. And not in alliance with him, and always speculated on the possibility of war. When he turned his back on them in the market, men felt relieved, and, as they passed his gate, looked with no friendly glances over his park wall. What happened within was perfectly familiar to many persons. Our friend was insolent to all his servants, and of course very well served, but very much disliked in consequence.
The butler was familiar with Taplow. The housekeeper had a friend at Newcomb. Mrs. Taplow, in fact, of the King's Arms, one of the grooms at Newcomb Park had company with Mrs. Baldr's maid. The incomings and outgoings, the quarrels and tears, the company from London, and all the doings of the folks at Newcomb Park were thus known to the neighborhood round about. The apothecary brought an awful story back from Newcomb. He had been called to Lady Clara in strong, hysterical fits. He found her ladyship with a bruise on her face. When Sir Barnes approached her, he would not allow the medical man to see her except in his presence. She screamed and bade him not come near her. These things did Mr. Vidler weakly impart to Mrs.
Vidler, these under solemn vows of secrecy. Mrs. Vidler told to one or two friends. Sir Barnes and Lady Clara were seen shopping together very graciously in Newcomb a short time afterwards. Persons who dined at the park said the baronet and his wife seemed on very good terms, but that story of the bruised cheek remained in the minds of certain people and lay by a compound interest as such stories will. Now, say people quarrel and make it up, or don't make it up. But wear a smirking face to society, and call each other, my dear and my love, and smooth over their countenances before John, who enters with the coals as they are barking and biting. Or who announces the dinner as they are tearing each other's eyes out.
Suppose a woman is ever so miserable, and yet smiles, and doesn't show her grief. Quite right. says her prudent friends, and her husband's relations above all. My dear, you have too much propriety to exhibit your grief before the world, or above all, before the darling children. So to lie is your duty, to lie to your friends, to yourself if you can, to your children. Does this discipline of hypocrisy improve any mortal woman? Say she learns to smile after a blow. Do you suppose in this matter alone she will be a hypocrite? Poor Lady Clara. I fancy a better lot for you than that to which fate handed you over. I fancy there need had been no deceit in your fond, simple little heart. Could it but have been given into other keeping?
But you were consigned to a master, whose scorn and cruelty terrified you. Under whose sardonic glances your scared eyes were afraid to look up, and before whose gloomy coldness you dared not be happy. Suppose a little plant, very frail and delicate from the first, but that might have bloomed sweetly and borne fair flowers had it received warm shelter and kindly nurture. Suppose a young creature taken out of her home and given over to a hard master whose caresses are as insulting as his neglect, consigned to cruel usage, to weary loneliness, to bitter, bitter recollections of the past. Suppose her schooled into hypocrisy by tyranny, and then, quick, let us hire an advocate to roar out to a British jury the wrongs of her injured husband.
To paint the agonies of his bleeding heart, if Mr. Advocate gets plaintiff brief in time, and before defendant's attorney has retained him, and to show society injured through him. Let us console that martyr, I say, with thumping damages, and as for the woman, the guilty wretch, let us lead her out and stone her.
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56 56 - Chapter 56: Rosa quo locorum sera moratur 22:12
The Newcomes by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 56. Rosa Colacorum Seremorator.
Clive Newcomb bore his defeat with such a courage and resolution as those who knew the young fellow's character were sure he would display. It was whilst he had a little lingering hope still that the poor lad was in the worst condition, as a gambler is restless and unhappy whilst his last few guineas remain with him, and he is venturing them against the overpowering chances of the bank. His last piece, however, Gone, our friend rises up from that unlucky table, beaten at the contest but not broken in spirit. He goes back into the world again and withdraws from that dangerous excitement. Sometimes when he is alone or wakeful, tossing in his bed at nights, he may recall the fatal game and think how he might have won it.
Think what a fool he was ever to have played it at all. But these cogitations Clive kept for himself. He was magnanimous enough not even to blame Ethel much, and to take her side against his father, who, it must be confessed, now exhibited a violent hostility against that young lady and her belongings. Slow to anger, and utterly beyond deceit himself, when Thomas Newcomb was once roused, or at length believed that he was cheated, woe to the offender. From that day forth, Thomas believed no good of him. Every thought of action of his enemy's life seemed treason to the worthy colonel. If Barnes gave a dinner party, his uncle was ready to fancy that the banker wanted to poison somebody. If he made a little speech in the House of Commons.
Barnes did make little speeches in the House of Commons. The colonel was sure some infernal conspiracy lay under the villain's words. The whole of that branch of the Newcombs fared little better at their kinsmen's hands. They were all deceitful, sordid, heartless, worldly. Ethel herself know better now than the people who have bred her up. People hate as they love unreasonably. Whether is it the more mortifying to us to feel that we are disliked or liked undeservedly? Clive was not easy until he had the sea between him and his misfortune, and now Thomas Newcomb had the chance of making that tour with his son, which in early days had been such a favorite project with the good man. They traveled Rheinland and Switzerland together.
They crossed into Italy, went from Milan to Venice, where Clive saluted the greatest painting in the world, the glorious Assumption of Titian. They went to Trieste, and over the beautiful Styrian Alps to Vienna. They beheld Danube, and the plain where the Turk and Sobieski fought. They traveled at a prodigious fast pace. They did not speak much to one another. They were a patterned pair of English travelers. I dare say many persons whom they met smiled to observe them, and shrugged their shoulders at the aspect of St. Ingles. They did not know the care in the young traveler's mind, and the deep tenderness and solicitude of the elder. Clive wrote to say it was a very pleasant tour, but I think I should not have liked to join it.
Let us dismiss it in this single sentence. Other gentlemen have taken the same journey, and with sorrow, perhaps, at their silent fellow-traveller. How you remember the places afterwards, and the thoughts which pursued you. If, in after days, when your grief is dead and buried, you revisit the scenes in which it was your companion, how its ghost rises and shows itself again. Suppose this part of Mr. Clive's life were to be described at length in several chapters, and not in a single brief sentence. What dreary pages they would be! In two or three months our friends saw a number of men, cities, mountains, rivers, and what not. It was yet early autumn, when they were back in France again, and September found them at Brussels, with James Binney.
Esquire and his family were established in comfortable quarters, and where we may be sure Clive and his father were very welcome. Dragged abroad, at first sorely against his will, James Binney had found the continental life pretty much to his liking. He had passed a winter at Powell, a summer at Vichy, where the waters had done him good. His ladies had made several charming foreign acquaintances. Mrs. McKenzie had quite a list of counts and marchionesses among her friends. The excellent Captain Golby wandered about the country with them. Was it to Rosie? Was it to her mother? The captain was most detached. Rosie received him as a godpapa. Mrs. McKenzie as a wicked, odious, good-for-nothing, dangerous, delightful creature.
Is it humiliating? Is it consolatory to remark with what small wits some of our friends are amused? The jovial sallies of Goby appeared exquisite to Rosie's mother, and to the girl probably, though that young beharter of his Clive Newcomb chose to wear a grave face, confound his insolent airs, at the very best of the Goby jokes. In Goby's train was his fervent admirer and inseparable young friend, Clarence Hobie. Captain Hobie and Captain Goby traveled the world together, visited Hamburg and Baden, Cheltenham and Leamington, Paris and Brussels, in company, belonged to the same club in London, the center of all pleasure, fashion, and joy, for the young officer and the older campaigner. The jokes at the flag, the dinners at the flag, the committee at the flag, were the theme of their constant conversation.
Goby, fifty years old, unattached and with dyed mustaches, was the affable comrade of the youngest member of his club. When absent, a friend wrote him the last riddle from the smoking room. When present, his knowledge of horses, of cookery, wines and cigars, and military history rendered him a most acceptable companion. He knew the history and achievements of every regiment in the army, of every general and commanding officer. He was known to have been out more than once himself, and had made up a hundred quarrels. He was certainly not a man of an ascetic life or a profound intellectual culture, but, though poor, he was known to be most honorable. Though more than middle-aged, he was cheerful, busy, and kindly.
And though the youngsters called him Old Goby, he bore his years very gaily and handsomely, and I dare say numbers of ladies besides Mrs. Mackenzie thought him delightful. Goby's talk and rattle perhaps somewhat bore James Binney, but Thomas Newcomb found the captain excellent company, and Goby did justice to the good qualities of the colonel. Clive's father liked Brussels very well. He and his son occupied very handsome quarters near the spacious apartments in the park which James Binney's family inhabited. Waterloo was not far off, to which the Indian officer paid several visits with Captain Goby for a guide, and many of Marlborough's battlefields were near, in which Goby certainly took but a minor interest.
But on the other hand, Codby held these with the greatest pleasure. and painted more than one dashing piece, in which Churchill and Eugene, Cutts, and Codigan were the heroes whose flowing periwigs, huge boots, and thundering Flemish charges were, he thought, more novel and picturesque than the Duke's or two, and the French grenadiers' hairy caps which so many English and French artists have portrayed. Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were invited by our kind colonel to pass a month—six months, if they chose—at Brussels, and were most splendidly entertained by our friends in that city. A suite of handsome rooms was set apart for us. My study communicated with Clive's atelier. Many an hour did we pass, and many a ride and walk did we take together.
I observed that Clive never mentioned Miss Newcomb's name. And Laura and I agreed that it was as well not to recall it. Only once, when we read the death of Lady Glenlivet, Lord Farentosh's mother, in the newspaper, I remember to have said, I suppose that marriage will be put off again. "'Qu'est-ce que, selon ma fête,' says Mr. Clive gloomily over his picture, a cheerful piece representing Count Egmont going to execution. In which I had the honor to figure as a halberdier. Captain Holby as the Count, and Captain Goby as the Duke of Alva, looking out of window. Mrs. McKenzie was in a state. She made a great happiness and glory during this winter. She had a carriage and worked that vehicle most indefatigably.
She knew a great deal of good company at Brussels. She had an evening for receiving. She herself went to countless evening parties, and had the joy of being invited to a couple of court balls, at which I am bound to say her daughter and herself both looked very handsome. The colonel brushed up his old uniform and attended these entertainments. Monsieur Newcomb Fees, as I should judge, was not the worst-looking man in the room. And, as these young people waltzed together, in which accomplishment Clive was very much more skillful than Captain Goby, I dare say many people thought he and Rosie made a pretty couple. Most persons, my wife included, difficult as that lady is to please, were pleased with the pretty little Rosie.
She sang charmingly now, and looks so wild singing. If her mother would but have omitted that chorus, which she cackled perseveringly behind her daughter's pretty back, about Rosie's angelic temper, about the compliments in your Poloni paid her. About Sir Horace Dash, our minister, insisting upon her singing, batty batty, over again, and the archdew clapping his hands and saying, oh yes, about Count von der Sloppen's attentions to her, etc., etc. But for these constant remarks of Mrs. Max, I am sure no one would have been better pleased with Miss Rosie's singing and behavior than myself. As for Captain Hobie, it was easy to see how he was affected towards Miss Rosalind's music and person. And indeed, few things could be pleasanter than to watch the behavior of this pretty little maid with her Uncle James and his old chum, the Colonel.
The latter was soon as fond of her as James Benny himself, whose face used to lighten with pleasure whenever it turned toward hers. She seemed to divine his wants, as she would trip across the room to fulfill them. She skipped into the carriage and covered his feet with a shawl. James was lazy and chilly now, when he took his drive. She stayed opposite to him and smiled on him, and if he dozed, quick, another handkerchief was round his neck. I do not know whether she understood his jokes, but she saluted them always with a sweet, kind smile. How she kissed him, and how delighted she was if he brought her a bouquet for her ball that night. One day, upon occasion of one of these balls, James and Thomas, those two old boys, absolutely came into Mrs.
Mackenzie's drawing-room with a bouquet apiece for Miss Rosie, and there was a fine laughing. "'Oh, you little Susanna,' says James, after taking his usual payment, Now go and pay to the elder. Rosie did not quite understand at first, being, you see, more ready to laugh at jokes than to comprehend them. But when she did, I promise you she looked uncommonly pretty, as she advanced to Colonel Newcomb and put that pretty fresh cheek of hers up to his grizzled mustache. I protest I don't know which of you blushes the most, chuckles James Binney. And the truth is, the old man and the young girl had both hung out those signals of amiable distress. On this day, and as Miss Rosie was to be overpowered by flowers, who should come presently to dinner but Captain Hobie, with another bouquet, on which Uncle James said Rosie she'd go to the ball like an American Indian with her scalps at her belt.
"'Scalps!' cries Mrs. Mackenzie. "'Scalps! Oh, law!' exclaims Miss Rosie. "'What can you mean by anything so horrid?' Goby recalls to Mrs. Mack, "'Hook, Ima, Gauche, the Indian chief, "'whom she must have seen when the hundred and fiftieth were at Quebec.'" And who had his lodge full of them, and who used to lie about the barracks so drunk, and who used to beat his poor little European wife. And presently Mr. Clive Newcomb joins this company, when the chirping, tittering, joking, laughing cease somehow. Has Clive brought a bouquet, too? No. He has never thought about a bouquet. He is dressed in black, with long hair, A long mustache and melancholy imperial. He looks very handsome, but as glum as an undertaker.
And James Binney says, He can't, Tom. They used to call you the knight of the woeful countenance, and Clive has just inherited the paternal mug. Then James calls out in a cheery voice, Dinner! Dinner! And trots off with Mrs. Pendennis under his arm. Rosie nestles up against the colonel. Colby and Mrs. Mack walk away arm in arm very contentedly, and I don't know with which of her three nosegays pretty Rosie appears at the ball. Our stay with our friends at Brussels could not be prolonged beyond a month, for at the end of that period we were under an engagement to other friends in England, who were good enough to desire the presence of Mrs. Pendennis and her suite of baby, nurse, and husband. So we presently took leave of Rosie and the campaigner, of the two stout elders, and our melancholy young Clive, who bore his company to Antwerp, and who won Laura's heart by the neat way in which he took her child on board ship.
Poor fellow! How sad he looked as he bowed to us and took off his hat. His eyes did not seem to be looking at us, though they, in his thoughts, were turned another way. He moved off immediately with his head down, puffing his eternal cigar, and lost in his own meditations, our going or our staying were of very little importance to the lugubrious youth. I think it was a great pity they came to Brussels, says Laura, as we stayed on the deck, while her unconscious infant was cheerful, and while the water of the lazy shelled as yet was smooth. Who? The Colonel and Clive? They are very handsomely lodged. They have a good maitre d'htel. Their dinners, I am sure, are excellent, and your child, madam, is as healthy as it possibly can be.
Blessed Darling, yes, Blessed Darling crows, moos, jumps in his nurse's arms, and holds out a little mottled hand for a biscuit of Savoy, which Mama supplies. I can't help thinking, Arthur, that Rosie would have been much happier as Mrs. Hobie than she will be as Mrs. Newcomb. Who thinks of her being Mrs. Newcomb? Her mother, her uncle, and Clive's father. Since the Colonel has been so rich, I think Mrs. McKenzie sees a great deal of merit in Clive. Rosie will do anything her mother bids her. If Clive can be brought to the same obedience, Uncle James and the Colonel will be delighted. Uncle James has set his heart on this marriage. He and his sister agree upon this point. He told me last night that he would sing Nunc Demitz.
Could he but see the two children happy, and that he should lie easier in purgatory if that could be brought about. And what did you say, Laura? I laughed. And told Uncle James I was of the Hobie faction. He is very good-natured, frank, honest, and gentleman-like. Mr. Hobie. But Uncle James said he thought Mr. Hobie was so, well, so stupid, that his Rosie would be thrown away upon the poor captain. So I did not tell Uncle James that, before Clive's arrival, Rosie had found Captain Hobie far from stupid. He used to sing duets with her. He used to ride with her before Clive came. Last winter, when they were at Powell, I felt certain Miss Rosie thought Captain Hobie very pleasant indeed. She thinks she was attached to Clive formerly, and now she admires him, and is dreadfully afraid of him.
He is taller and handsomer, and richer and cleverer than Captain Hobie, certainly. "'I should think so indeed,' rakes up Mr. Pendennis. "'Why, my dear, Clive is as fine a fellow as one can see on a summer's day. It does one good to look at him. What a frank pair of bright blue eyes he has, or used to have, till this mishap overclouded them. What a pleasant laugh he has. What a well-built, agile figure it is. What pluck and spirit and honor there is about my young chap.'" I don't say he is a genius of the highest order, but he is the staunchest, the bravest, the cheeriest, the most truth-telling, the kindest heart. Compare him and Hobie. Why, Clive is an eagle, and yonder little creature a mousing owl.
I like to hear you speak, so cries Mrs. Laura very tenderly. People say that you are always sneering, Arthur, but I know my husband better. We know Papa better, don't we, baby? He and my wife kisses the infant Pendennis with great effusion, who has come up dancing on his nurse's arm. Butch, says she, coming back and snuggling by her husband's side again, but suppose your favorite Clive is an eagle, Arthur. Don't you think he had better have an eagle for a mate? If he were to marry little Rosie, I dare say he would be very good to her. But I think neither he nor she would be very happy. My dear, she does not care for his pursuits. She does not understand him when he talks. The two captains, and Rosie and I, and the campaigner, as you call her, laugh and talk and prattle, and have the merriest little jokes with one another, and we are all as quiet as mice when you and Clive come in.
What, am I an eagle, too? I have no acro-line pretensions at all, Mrs. Pendennis. No? Well, we are not afraid of you. We are not afraid of Papa, are we, darling? This young woman now calls out to the other member of her family, who, if you will calculate, has just had time to be walked twice up and down the deck of the steamer, while Slara has been making her speech about eagles. And soon the mother, child and attendant descend into the lower cabins, and then dinner is announced, and Captain Jackson treats us to champagne from his end of the table, and yet a short while, and we are at sea, and conversation becomes impossible, and morning sees us under the grey London sky, and amid the million of masks in the Thames.
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57 57 - Chapter 57: Rosebury and Newcome 55:30
The friends to whom we were engaged in England were Florak and his wife, Madame la Princesse de Montcontour, who were determined to spend the Christmas holidays at the Princess's country seat. It was for the first time since their reconciliation that the Prince and Princess dispensed their hospitalities at the latter chateau. It is situated, as the reader has already been informed, at some five miles from the town of Newcomb, away from the chimneys and smoky atmosphere of that place, in a sweet country of rural woodlands, over which quiet villages, gray church spires, and ancient gabled farmhouses are scattered. Still wearing the peaceful aspect which belonged to them when Newcomb was as yet but an antiquated country town, before mills were erected on its river banks, and dyes and cinders blackened its stream.
Twenty years since Newcomb Park was the only great house in that district, now scores of fine vias have sprung up in the suburb lying between the town and park. Newcomb Newtown. As everybody knows, it has grown round the park gates. And the Newtown Hotel, where the railway station is, is a splendid structure in the Tudor style, more ancient in appearance than the park itself, surrounded by little antique vias with spiked gables, stacks of crooked chimneys, and plate glass windows looking upon trim lawns. with glistening hedges of evergreens, spotless gravel walks, and Elizabethan gig-houses. Under the great railway viaduct of the Newtown goes the old, tranquil, winding London High Road, once busy with a score of gay coaches, and ground by innumerable wheels.
But at a few miles from the Newtown station, the road has become so moldy that the grass actually grows on it. And Roseberry, Madame de Marquantour's house, stands at one end of a village green, which is even more quiet now than it was a hundred years ago. When first Madame de Florac bought the place, it scarcely ranked amongst the country houses. And she, the sister of manufacturers at Newcomb and Manchester, did not, of course, visit the county families. A homely little body, married to a Frenchman from whom she was separated, may or may not have done a great deal of good in her village, have had pretty gardens, and won prizes at the Newcomb flower and fruit shows. But, of course, she was nobody in such an aristocratic county as we know.
Shire is. She had her friends and relatives from Newcomb. Many of them were Quakers. Many were retail shopkeepers. She even frequented the Little Branch Ebenezer on Roseberry Green. And it was only by her charities and kindness at Christmas time that the Reverend Dr. Potter, the Rector at Roseberry, knew her. The old clergy, you see, live with the county families. Good little Madame de Florac was pitied and patronized by the doctor, treated with no little superciliousness by Mrs. Potter and the young ladies, who only kept the first society. Even when her rich brother died, and she got her share of all that money, Mrs. Potter said poor Madame de Florac did well in not trying to move out of her natural sphere.
Mrs. P. was the daughter of a bankrupt hatter in London, and had herself been governess in a noble family, out of which she married Mr. P., who was private tutor. Madame de Fleurec did well, she said, not to endeavor to leave her natural sphere, and that the county never would receive her. Tom Potter, the rector's son, with whom I had the good fortune to be a fellow-student at St. Boniface College, Oxbridge, a rattling, forward, and it must be owned, vulgar youth, asked me whether Florac was not a billiard-marker by profession, and was even so kind as to caution his sisters not to speak of billiards before the Lady of Roseberry. Tom was surprised to learn that M. Paul de Florac was a gentleman of lineage incomparably better than that of any, except two or three families in England, including your own, my dear and respected reader, of course, if you hold to your pedigree.
But the truth is, heroically speaking, that union with the Higgs of Manchester was the first misalliance which the Floric family had made for long, long years. Not that I would wish for a moment to insinuate that any nobleman is equal to an English nobleman, nay, that an English snob, with a coat of arms bought yesterday, or stolen out of Edmonton, or a pedigree purchased from a peerage-maker, has not a right to look down upon any of your paltry foreign nobility. One day, the carriage and four came in state from Newcombe Park, with the well-known chaste liveries of the Newcombes, and drove up Roseberry Green, towards the Parsonage Gate, when Mrs. and Miss Potters happened to be standing, cheapening fish from a donkey-man, with whom they were in the habit of dealing.
The ladies were in their pokiest old headgear and most dingy gowns when they perceived the carriage approaching, and considering, of course, that the visit of the park people was intended for them, dashed into the rectory to change their clothes, leaving Rokens, the costumonger, in the very midst of the negotiation about the Three Mackerel. Mama got that new bonnet out of the bandbox. Lizzie and Liddy skipped up to their bedroom and brought out those dresses which they wore at the Dejourner at the Newcom Athenium when Lord Lovery came down to lecture, into which they no sooner had hooked their lovely shoulders than they reflected with terror that Mama had been altering one of Papa's flannel waistcoats and had left it in the drawing room.
When they were called out by the Song of Rokin's, and the appearance of his donkey's ears over the green gate of the rectory. To think of the park people coming, and the drawing room in that dreadful state. But when they came downstairs, the park people were not in the room. The woolen garment was still on the table. How they plunged it into the chiffonier. And the only visitor was Ralkins, the cluster monger, grinning at the open French windows with the three mackerels and crying. Make it sixpence, miss. Don't say fippence, ma'am, to a poor fellow that has a wife and family. So that the young ladies had to cry, Impudence! Get away, you vulgar, insolent creature! Go round, sir, to the back door!
How dare you! And the like. Fearing less Lady Anne Newcomb and young Ethel and Barnes should enter in the midst of this ignoble controversy. They never came at all, those bar people. How very odd. They passed the rectory gate. They drove on to Madame de Florex's lodge. They went in. They stayed for half an hour. The horses driving round and round the gravel road before the house, and Mrs. Potter and the girls speedily going to the upper chambers and looking out of the room where the maids left. Saw Lady Anne Ethel and Barnes walking with Madame de Florac, going into the conservatories, issuing thence with MacWitter, the gardener, bearing huge bunches of grapes and large fashions of flowers. They saw Barnes talking in the most respectful manner to Madame de Florac, and when they went downstairs and had their work before them, Liddy, her gilt music-book, Lizzie, her embroidered altar-cloth, Mama, her scarlet cloak for one of the old women.
They had the agony of seeing the baroche over the railings whisked by. with the park people inside, and Barnes driving the four horses. It was on that day when Barnes had determined to take up Madame de Florac, when he was bent upon reconciling her to her husband. In spite of all Mrs. Potter's predictions, the county families did come and visit the manufacturer's daughter. And when Madame de Florac became Madame la Princesse de Mont-Contour, when it was announced that she was coming to stay at Roseberry for Christmas, I leave you to imagine whether the circumstance was or was not mentioned in the Newcomb Sentinel and the Newcomb Independent, and whether Reverend G. Potter, D.D., and Mrs. Potter did or did not call on the prince and princess.
I'd leave you to imagine whether the lady did or did not inspect all the alterations which Veneer's people from Newcomb were making at Roseberry House. The chased yellow satin and gold of the drawing room, the carved oak for the dining room, the chintz for the bedrooms, the princess's apartment, the prince's apartment, the guest's apartments, the smoking room, Gracious goodness! The stables! They were under Tom Potter's superintendence. And I'm finished, says he one day, if here doesn't come a billiard-table. The house was most comfortably and snugly appointed from top to bottom, and thus it will be seen that Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis were likely to be in very good quarters for Christmas of eighteen-four-blank.
Tom Potter was so kind as to call on me two days after our arrival, and to greet me in the Princess's Bewer Church on the previous day, before desiring to be introduced to my wife. He requested me to present him to my friend, the Prince. He called him Your Highness, His Highness, who had behaved with exemplary gravity, save once when he shrieked an ah! As Miss Liddy led off the children in the organ loft in a hymn, and the whole pack went woefully out of tune, complimented Monsieur Tom on the sermon of Monsieur his father. Tom walked with us to Roseberry Lodge Gate. "'Will you not come in and make a party of billiard with me,' says His Highness. "'Ah, pardon, I forgot you do not play the billiard this Sunday.
Any other day, Prince, I shall be delighted.'" Says Tom, and squeezed his Highness's hand tenderly at parting. Your comrade of college was he? asked Sworak. My dear, what men are these comrades of college? What men are you English? My word of honor, there are some of them here. If I were to say to them, wax my boots, they would take them and wax them. Didst thou see how, the Reverend eyed us during the sermon? He regarded us over his book. My word of honor." Madame de Florac said simply, she wished the prince would go and hear Mr. Jacob at the Ebenezer. Mr. Potter was not a good preacher, certainly. "'C'est qu'elle est friseurant belle, la fille de reverende,' whispered his highness to me. I have made eyes at her during this sermon."
They will be a pretty neighbors, these meses, and Paul looked unutterably roguish and victorious as he spoke. To my wife I am bound to say, Monsieur de Moncontour showed a courtesy, a respect and kindness, that could not be exceeded. He admired her. He paid her compliments innumerable, and gave me, I am sure, sincere congratulations at possessing such a treasure. I do not think he doubted about his power of conquering her, or any other of the daughters of women, but I was the friend of his misfortunes, his guest, and he spared me. I have seen nothing more amusing, odd, and pleasant than Florak at this time of his prosperity. We arrived, at this voracious chronicle has already asserted, on a Saturday evening.
We were conducted to our most comfortable apartments, with crackling fires blazing on the hearths, and every warmth of welcome. Florek expanded and beamed with good nature. He shook me many times by the hand. He patted me. He called me his good, his brave. He cried to his maitre d'Hotel, Frederick, remember monsieur is master here. Run before his orders. Prostrate thyself to him. He was good to me in the days of my misfortune. Hearest thou, Frederick? See that everything be done for Monsieur Pendennis, for Madame, ce charmante lady, for her angelic infant, and the Bon. None of thy garrison tricks with that young person, Frederick. Vierge Calouette, garde-toi de la Frederick. Sinon, je t'envoie et boute-en-a-bay.
C'est trop-doux devant l'homme d'aulde mer. Un angle de terre, je me l'ai fait en glace. But tu, mon ami, continued the prince, demand such Sunday. Et tu vas pas. I hear the bell. Dress thyself for the dinner, my friend. Here there was another squeeze of both hands from the good-natured fellow. Et tu good to my art to ave you in my house, eh? He hugged his guest. He had tears in his eyes as he performed this droll, this kind embrace, not less kind in her way, though less expensive and embrassive, was Madame Le Germain-Contour to my wife, as I found on comparing notes with that young woman, when the day's hospitalities were ended. The little princess trotted from bedchamber to nursery to see that everything was made comfortable for her guests.
She sat and saw the child washed and put to bed. She had never beheld such a little angel. She brought her to find toys to play with. She and her old grim maid frightened the little creature at first, but it was very speedily reconciled to their countenances. She was in the nursery almost as early as the child's mother. Ah, sighed the poor little woman. How happy you must be to have one. In fine, My wife was quite overcome by her goodness and welcome. Sunday morning arrived in the course of time, and then Florak appeared as a most wonderful Briton indeed. He wore top boots and buckskins, and after breakfast, when we went to church, a white greatcoat with a little cape, in which garment he felt that his similarity to an English gentleman was perfect.
In conversation with his grooms and servants, he swore freely. Not that he was accustomed to employ oaths in his own private clock, but he thought the employment of these expletives necessary as an English country gentleman. He never dined without a roast beef, and insisted that the piece of meat should be bleeding. As you love it, you others. He got up boxing matches, and kept birds for combats of clock. He assumed the sporting language with admirable enthusiasm, drove over to cover with a steppe, rode across country like a good one, was splendid in the hunting field in his velvet cap and Napoleon boots, and made the hunt welcome at Roseberry, where his good-natured little wife was as kind to the gentleman in Scarlet as she used to be of old to the stout, dissenting gentleman in black.
Who sang hymns and spake sermons on her lawn. These folks, scared at the change which had taken place in the little princess's habits of life, lamented her falling away. But in the county she and her husband got up great popularity, and in Newcomb town itself they were not less liked, for her benefactions were unceasing, and Paul's affability the theme of all praise. The Newcomb Independent and the Newcomb Sentinel both paid him compliments, the former journal contrasting his behavior with that of Sir Barnes, their member. Florek's pleasure was to drive his princess with four horses into Newcomb. He called his carriage his trap, his drage. The street boys cheered and hurrayed, the prince as they passed through the town.
One haberdasher had a yellow stock called the Mont-Contour displayed in his windows. Another had a pink one marked, the princely, and as such recommended it to the young Newcomb gents. The drague conveyed us once to the neighboring house of Newcomb, whither my wife accompanied Madame de Mont-Contour as that lady's own request, to whom Laura very properly did not think fit to confide her in Timothy. For Lady Clara Newcomb. Coming away from a great house, how often she and I, egotistical philosophers, thanked our fates that our own home was a small one. How long will great houses last in this world? Do not their owners now prefer a lodging at Brighton, or a little estrusole on the boulevard to the solitary ancestral palace in a park barred round with snow?
We were as glad to get out of Newcomb as out of prison. My wife and our hostess skipped into the carriage and began to talk freely as the large gates closed after us. Would we be lords of such a place under the penalty of living in it? We agreed that the little angle of earth called Fair Oaks was dearer to us than the clumsy Newcomb pile of Tudor masonry. The house had been fitted up in the time of George IV and the quasi-Gothic revival. We were made to pass through Gothic dining-rooms, where there was now no hospitality, Gothic drawing-rooms shrouded in brown hollands, to one little room at the end of the dusky suite, where Lady Clara sate alone, or in the company of the nurses and children, The blank gloom of the place had fallen upon the poor lady.
Even when my wife talked about children, good-natured Madame de Maucontour vaunted ours as a prodigy. Lady Clara did not brighten up. Her pair of young ones was exhibited and withdrawn. A something weighed upon the woman. We talked about Ethel's marriage. She said it was fixed for the new year. She believed. She did not know whether Glen Levitt had been very handsomely fitted up. She had not seen Lord Flarentor's house in London. Sir Barnes came down once, twice, of a Saturday sometimes, for three or four days to hunt, to amuse himself, as all men do, she supposed. She did not know when he was coming again. She rang languidly when we rose to take leave, and sank back on her sofa, where lay a heap of French novels.
She has chosen some pretty books, says Paul, as we drove through the somber avenues through the great park, mists lying about the melancholy ornamental waters, dingy herds of huddled sheep speckling the grass here and there. No smoke rising up from the great stacks of chimneys of the building. We were leaving behind us, save one little feeble thread of white, which we knew came from the fire by which the lonely mistress of Newcomb was seated. Oof! cries Florek, playing his whip, as the lodge gates closed on us, and his team of horses rattled merrily along the road. What a blessing it is to be out of that vault! of a place. There is something fatal in that house. In this woman, one smells misfortune there.
The hotel which our friend Flora patronized on occasion of his visits to Newcomb was the King's Arms, and it happened one day, as we entered that place of entertainment and company, that a visitor of the house was issuing through the hall. To whom Florek seemed as if he would administer one of his customary embraces, and to whom the prince called out, Jack, with great warmth and kindness as he ran towards the stranger. Jack did not appear to be particularly well pleased on beholding us. He rather retreated from before the Frenchman's advances. My dear Jack, my good, my brave Ingligate, I am delighted to see you. Florek continues, regardless of the stranger's reception or the landlord's looks towards us, who was bowing the prince into his very best room.
"'How do you do, Monsieur de Florek?' growls the newcomer. "'Surlily,' and was for moving on after this brief salutation. But having a second thought seemingly, turned back and followed Florek into the apartment where our host conducted us. "'A la bonne heure!' Fleurac renewed his cordial greetings to Lord Highgate. "'I knew not, Mon Paul. "'What, fly, had stung you?' says he to my lord. The landlord, rubbing his hands, smirking and bowing, was anxious to know whether the prince would take anything after his drive. As the prince's attendant friend, the lustre of his reception partially illuminated me. When the chief was not by, I was treated with great attention, mingled with a certain degree of familiarity, by my landlord.
Lord Highgate waited until Mr. Taplow was out of the room, and then said to Florek, Don't call me by my name here, please, Florek. I am here in Cog. Pletile? asked Florek. Where is in Cog? He laughed when the word was interpreted to him. Lord Highgate had turned to me. There was no rudeness, you understand, intended, Mr. Pendennis. But I am down here on some business, and don't care to wear the handle to my name. Fellas work it so, don't you understand? Never leave you at rest in a country town. That sort of thing. Heard of our friend Clive lately? Whether you have handle or no handle, Jack, you will always be unvenu to me. What is thy affair? Oh, monster, I wager. No, no, no such nonsense," said Jack rather eagerly.
I give you my honor. Aye, I want to, to raise the sum of money. That is, to invest some in a speculation down here. Do some good the speculations down here. And by the way, if the landlord asks you, I'm Mr. Harris. I'm a civil engineer. I'm waiting for the arrival of the Canada at Liverpool. from America, and very uneasy about my brother who is on board. What does he recount to us here? Keep these stories from the landlord, Jack. To us, tis not the pain to lie. My good Mr. Harris, why have we not seen you at Roseberry? The princess will scold me if you do not come, and you must bring your dear brother when he arrived, too. Do you hear? The last part of this sentence was uttered for Mr. Taplow's benefit, who had re-entered the George Bearing-A-Tray of Wine and Biscuit.
The master, Rosemary and Mr. Harris, went out presently to look at a horse which was waiting the former's inspection in the stable-yard of the hotel. The landlord took advantage of his business, to hear a bell which never was rung. and asked me questions about the guest who had been staying at his house for a past week. Did you know that party, Mr. Pendennis said? Yes, he knew that party. Most respectable party, I have no doubt, continues Boniface. Do you suppose the Prince of Mocantour knows any but respectable parties, asked Mr. Pendennis, a quarry of which the force was so great as to discomfort and silence our landlord? who retreated to ask questions concerning Mr. Harris of Florack's grooms.
What was Highgate's business here? Was it mine to know? I might have suspicions, but should I entertain them or communicate them, and had I not best keep them to myself? I exchanged not a word on the subject of Highgate with Florack, as we drove home. Though, from the way in which we looked at one another, each saw that the other was acquainted with that unhappy gentleman's secret. We fell to talking about Madame la Duchesse d'Evry, as we trotted on, and then of English manners by way of contrast, of intrigues, elopements, Gretna Green, etc., etc. You are a droll nation, says Florac, to make love well. You must absolutely have a chasse to post, and a scandal afterwards. If our affairs of this kind made themselves on the grand route, what armies of postillions we should need.
I held my peace. In that vision of Jack Belsize, I saw misery, guilt, children dishonored, homes deserted, ruin for all the actors and victims of the wretched conspiracy. Laura marked my disturbance when we reached home. She even divined the cause of it, and charged me with it at night, when we stayed alone by our dressing-room fire, and had taken leave of our kind entertainers. Then, under her cross-examination, I owned that I told her what I had seen. Lord Highgate, under a feigned name, staying at Newcombe. It might be nothing. Nothing. Gracious heavens! Could not this crime and misery be stopped? It might be too late," Laura's husband said sadly, bending down his head into the fire. She was silent, too, for a while.
I could see she was engaged where pious women ever will betake themselves in moments of doubt, of grief, of pain, of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever other trial. They have but to will. and as if it were an invisible temple rises around them. Their hearts can kneel down there, and they have an audience of the great, the merciful, untiring counselor and consoler. She would not have been frightened to death near at hand. I have known her to tend the poor round about us, or to be a pain, not her own merely, but even her children's and mine, with a surprising outward constancy and calm. But the idea of this crime being enacted close at hand, and no help for it, quite overcame her. I believe she lay awake all that night, and rose quite haggard and pale after the bitter thoughts which had deprived her of rest.
She embraced her own child with extraordinary tenderness that morning, and even wept over it, calling it by a thousand fond names a maternal endearment. When I leave you, my darling, Could I ever, ever, ever quit you, my blessing and treasure? The unconscious little thing, hugged to his mother's bosom and, scared at her tones and tragic face, clung frightened and weeping round Laura's neck. Would you ask what the husband's feelings were as he looked at that sweet love, that supreme tenderness, that pure saint blessing, the life of him unworthy? Of all the gifts of heaven to us below, that felicity is the sum and the chief. I tremble as I hold it, lest I should lose it, and be left alone in the blank world without it.
Again, I feel humiliated to think that I possess it, as hastening home to a warm fireside and a plentiful table. I feel ashamed sometimes, before the poor outcast beggar shivering in the street. Breakfast was scarcely over when Laura asked for a pony carriage and said she was bent on a private visit. She took her baby and nurse with her. She refused our company and would not even say whether she was bound until she had passed the lodge gate. I may have suspected what the object was of her journey. Florek and I did not talk of it. We rode out to meet the hounds of a cheery winter morning. On another day, I might have been amused with my host. The splendor of his raiment, the neatness of his velvet cap, the gloss of his hunting boots, the cheers, shouts, salutations to dog and man, the ults and outcries of this Nimrod, who shouted louder than the whole field and the whole pack, too.
But on this morning, I was thinking of the tragedy yonder enacting, and came away early from the hunting field, and found my wife already returned to Rosebury. Laura had been, as I suspected, to Lady Clara. She did not know why, indeed. She scarce knew what she should say when she arrived, how she could say what she had on her mind. I hoped, Arthur, that I should have something, something told me to say. whispered Laura, with her head on my shoulder, and as I lay awake last night thinking of her, prayed, that is, hoped, I might find a word of consolation for that poor lady. Do you know? I think she has hardly ever heard a kind word. She said so. She was very much affected after we had talked together a little.
At first she was very indifferent, cold and haughty in her manner. Asked what had caused the pleasure of this visit, for I would go in, though at the lodge they told me her ladyship was unwell, and they thought received no company. I said I wanted to show our boy to her, that the children ought to be acquainted. I don't know what I said. She seemed more and more surprised. Then all of a sudden, I don't know how, I said, Lady Clara, I have had a dream about you and your children. And I was so frightened that I came over to speak to you about it. And I had the dream pen. It came to me absolutely as I was speaking to her. She looked a little scared, and I went on telling her the dream. My dear, I said, I dreamed that I saw you happy with those children.
Happy, says she. The three were playing in the conservatory into which her sitting room opens, and that a bad spirit came and tore them from you. "'And drove you out into the darkness. And I saw you wandering about lonely and wretched, and looking back into the garden where the children were playing. And you asked and implored to see them. And the keeper at the gate said, "'No, never.' And then, then I thought they passed by you, and they did not know you." "'Ah,' said Lady Clara. And then I thought, as we do in dreams, you know, that it was my child who was separated from me." And who would not know me? And oh, what a pang that was! Fancy that! Let us pray, God, it was only a dream. And worse than that, when you, when I implored to come to the child, and the man said, No, never.
I thought there came a spirit, an angel that fetched the child to heaven, and you said, Let me come too, oh, let me come too. I am so miserable. And the angel said, No, never, never. By this time Lady Clara was looking very pale. "'What do you mean?' she asked of me," Laura continued. "'Oh, dear lady, for the sake of the little ones, and him who calls them to him, go you with them. Never, never part from them. Cling to his knees and take shelter there.' I took her hands. And I said more to her in this way, Arthur, that I need not, that I ought not to speak again. But she was touched at length when I kissed her, and she said I was very kind to her, and no one had ever been so, and that she was quite alone in the world and had no friend to fly to.
And would I go and stay with her? And I said, yes, and we must go, my dear. I think you should see that person at Newcomb. See him. And warn him, cried Laura, warming as she spoke, and pray God to enlighten and strengthen him, and to keep him from this temptation, and employ him to lead this poor, weak, frightened, trembling creature. If he has the heart of a gentleman and the courage of a man, he will. I know he will. I think he would, my dearest, I said, if he but heard the petitioner. Laura's cheeks were blushing. Her eyes brightened. Her voice rang with the sweet pathos of love that vibrates through my whole being sometimes. It seems to me as if evil must give way, and bad thoughts retire before that purest creature.
Why has she not some of her family with her, poor thing? my wife continued. She perishes in that solitude. Her husband prevents her, I think, and, oh, I know enough of him to know what life is. "'I shudder, Arthur, to see you take the hand of that wicked, selfish man. You must break with him, do you hear, sir?' "'Before or after going to stay at his house, my love,' asked Mr. Pendennis. "'Poor thing. She lighted up at the idea of anyone coming. She ran and showed me the rooms we were to have. It would be very stupid, and you don't like that, but you can write your book and still hunt and shoot with our friends here.' And Lady Anne Newcomb must be made to come back again. Sir Barnes quarreled with his mother and drove her out of the house on her last visit.
Think of that! The servants here know it. Martha brought me the whole story from the housekeeper's room. This Sir Barnes Newcomb is a dreadful creature, Arthur. I am so glad I loathed him from the very first moment I saw him. "'And into this ogre's den you propose to put me and my family, madame,' says the husband. "'Indeed, where won't I go if you order me?' "'Oh, who will pack my portmanteau?' Florak and the princess were both in desolation when, at dinner, we announced our resolution to go away, and to our neighbors at Newcomb. That was more extraordinary. "'Que Diablo goest thou to do in this galley?' Ask our host as we sat alone over our wine. But Laura's intended visit to Lady Clara was never to have a fulfillment, for on this same evening, as we say to Zara's dessert, comes a messenger from Newcomb, with a note for my wife from the lady there.
"'Dearest, kindest Mrs. Pendennis,' Lady Clara wrote, with many italics and evidently in much distress of mind, Your visit is not to B. I spoke about it to Sir B., who arrived this afternoon, and who has already begun to treat me in his usual way. Oh, I am so unhappy. Pray, pray do not be angry at this rudeness, though indeed it is only a kindness to keep you from this wretched place. I feel as if I cannot bear this much longer. But, whatever happens, I shall always remember your goodness, your beautiful goodness and kindness, and shall worship you as an angel. Deserves to be worshipped. Oh, why had I not such a friend earlier? But, alas, I have none. Only his odious family thrust upon me for companions to the wretched, lonely C.N.
P.S. He does not know of my writing. Do not be surprised if you get another note from me in the morning, written in ceremonious style, and regretting that we cannot have the pleasure of receiving Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis or the present at Newcomb. P.S. The Hypocrite. This letter was handed to my wife at dinner-time, and she gave it to me as she passed out of the room with the other ladies. I told Florak that the Newcombs could not receive us, and that we would remain if he willed it, his guests for a little longer. The kind fellow was only too glad to keep us. My wife would die without Bebe, he said. She becomes quite dangerous about Bebe. It was gratifying that the good old lady was not to be parted as yet from the innocent object of her love.
My host knew, as well as I, the terms upon which Sir Barnes and his wife were living. Their quarrels were the talk of the whole county. One side brought forward his treatment of her, and his conduct elsewhere, and said that he was so bad that honest people should not know him. The other party laid the blame upon her, and declared that Lady Clara was a languid, silly, weak, frivolous creature. Always crying out of season, who had notoriously taken Sir Barnes for his money, and who certainly had had an attachment elsewhere. Yes, the accusations were true on both sides. A bad, selfish husband had married a woman for her rank. A weak, thoughtless girl had been sold to a man for his money. And the union, which might have ended in a complete indifference, had taken an ill turn and resulted in misery, cruelty, fierce mutual recriminations, bitter tears shed in private, husbands' curses and maledictions, and open scenes of wrath and violence for servants to witness and the world to sneer at.
We arrange such matters every day. We celebrate beauty or rank or wealth. We inaugurate the bargain in churches with sacramental services, in which the parties engaged call upon heaven to witness their vows. We know them to be lies, and we seal them with God's name. I, Barnes, promise to take you, Clara, to love and honor till death to us part.
I, Clara, promise to take you, Barnes, etc., etc., Who has not heard the ancient words, and how many of us have uttered them, knowing them to be untrue? And is there a bishop on the bench that has not amened the humbug in his lawn sleeves, and called a blessing over the kneeling perjurers? Does Mr. Harris know of Newcomb's return, Florik asked, when I acquainted him with this intelligence. Save Sclariat to Highgate? Does Newcomb know that Lord Highgate is here? I thought within myself, admiring my wife's faithfulness and simplicity, and trying to believe with that pure and guileless creature that it was not yet too late to save the unhappy Lady Clara. Mr. Harris had best be warned, I said to Florak.
Will you write him a word, and let us send a messenger to Newcomb? At first Florak said, Parbleu, no. The affair was none of his. He attended himself always to this result of Lady Clara's marriage. He had even complimented Jack upon it years before at Barden, when scenes enough tragic, enough comical mafrois, had taken place apropos of this affair. Why should he meddle with it now? Children dishonored, said I. Honest families made miserable. For heaven's sake, Florak. Let us stay this catastrophe if we can. I spoke with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible, and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before dinner from that noble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try and rescue an unhappy, desperate sister trembling on the verge of ruin.
If you will not write to him, said I in some heat, if your grooms don't like to go out at night. This was one of the objections which Floric had raised. I will walk. We were talking over the affair rather late in the evening, the ladies having retreated to their sleeping apartments, and some guests having taken leave. whom our hospitable host and hostess had entertained that night, and before whom I naturally did not care to speak upon a subject so dangerous. "'Pavleur! What virtue, my friend! What a Joseph!' cries Florac, puffing his cigar. "'One sees well that your wife had made you the sermon. My poor Pendennis! You are hen-pecked, my po of bone. You become the husband model.' It is true, my mother writes, that thy wife is an angel.
I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do right, I said, and would indeed, at that woman's request, have gone out upon the errand, but that we were found another messenger. On days when dinner parties were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary waiters used to attend from Newcomb, whom the landlord of the King's Arms was accustomed to supply. Indeed, it was to secure these, and make other necessary arrangements respecting fish, game, etc., that the Prince de Molcantour had written over to Newcomb on the day when we met Lord Highgate, alias Mr. Harris, before the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged in the above conversation, the servant enters and says, My lord, Jenkins and the other man is going back to Newcomb in their cart.
Is there anything wanted? It is the heaven which sends him, says Florek, turning round to me with a laugh. Make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert. I have to write to a gentleman at the king's arms. And so saying, Florek wrote a line which he showed me, and having sealed the note, directed it to Mr. Harris and the king's arms. The cart, the note, and the assistant waiters departed on their way to Newcomb. Florak bade me to go to rest with a clear conscience. In truth, the warning was better given in that way than any other, and a word from Florak was more likely to be effectual than an expostulation from me. I had never thought of making it, perhaps, except at the express desire of a lady whose counsel is all the difficult circumstances of life I own I am disposed to take.
Mr. Jenkins' horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as gentlemen's horse's will of a frosty night, after their masters have been regaled with plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember in my bachelor days that my horses always trotted quicker after I had had a good dinner. The champagne used to communicate itself to them somehow, and the claret get into their heels. Before midnight, the letter from Mr. Harris was in Mr. Harris's hands, in the King's arms. It has been said that in the Boscoen Room at the Arms, some of the jolly fellows of Newcomb had a club, of which Parrott the Auctioneer, Tom Potts the Talented Reporter, now Editor of the Independent, Vidler the Apothecary, and other gentlemen were members.
When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at an early stage of this history, long before Clive Newcomb's fine mustache had grown. If Vidler the apothecary was old and infirm then, he is near ten years older now. He has had various assistants, of course, and one of them of late years had his become his partner, though the firm continues to be known by Vidler's ancient and respectable name. A jovial fellow was this partner. A capital convivial member of the Jolly Britons, where he used to sit very late, so as to be in readiness for any night work that might come in. So the Britons were all sitting, smoking, drinking, and making merry, in the Buscoen room, when Jenkins enters with the note, which he straightway delivers to Mr.
Vidler's partner, from Roseberry, The prince is ill again, I suppose, says the surgeon. Not sorry to let the company know that he attends her. I wish the old girl would be ill in the daytime. Confound it, says he. What's this? And he reads out, Sir Newcomb esturator. Bon voyage, mon ami. F. What does this mean? I thought you knew French, Jack Harry, says Tom Potts. You're always bothering us with your French songs. Of course I know French, says the other. But what's the meaning of this? Scroogeum came back by the five o'clock train. I was in it, and His Royal Highness would scarcely speak to me. Took Brown's fly from the station. Brown won't enrich his family much by the operation, says Mr. Potts.
But what do I care, cries Jack Harris. We don't attend him, and we don't lose much by that. Howell attends him, ever since Fiddler and he had that row. "'Hullo.' "'I say it's a mistake,' cries Mr. Taplow, smoking in his chair. "'This letter is for the party in the Benbow, the gent which the prince spoke to him, and called him Jack the other day when he was here. He is a nice business, and the seal broke and all. Is the Benbow party gone to bed? John, you must carry him in this here note.'" John, quite innocent of the note and its contents, for he that moment had entered the clubroom with Mr. Potts' supper, took the note to the benbow, from which he presently returned to his master with a very scared countenance.
He said the gent in the benbow was a most arbitrary gent. He had almost choked John after reading the letter, and John wouldn't stand it. And when John said he supposed that Mr. Harris, in the bus, Galwin, that Mr. Jack Harris had opened the letter, the other gent cursed and swore awful. Potts said Taplow, who was only too communicative on some occasions after he had embalmed too much of his own brandy and water. It's my belief that that party's name is no more Harris than mine is. I have sent him his linen to the wash, and there was two white pocket-handkerchiefs with H and a coronet. On the next day we drove over to Newcomb, hoping perhaps to find that Lord Highgate had taken the warning sent to him and quitted the place.
But we were disappointed. He was walking in front of the hotel, where a thousand persons might see him as well as ourselves. We entered into his private apartment with him, and there expostulated upon his appearance in the public street, where Barnes Newcomb or any passerby might recognize him. He then told us of the mishap which had befallen Florek's letter on the previous night. I can't go away now, whatever might have happened previously. By this time that villain knows that I am here. If I go, He will say I was afraid of him and ran away. Oh, how I wish you would come and find me. He broke out with a savage laugh. It is best to run away, one of us interposed sadly. Pandanus, he said with a tone of great softness, your wife is a good woman.
God bless her. God bless her for all she has done and said. Would have done if that villain had let her. Do you know the poor thing hasn't a single friend in the world? Not one. One except me, and that girl they are selling to Farentosh, and who does not count for much. He has driven away all her friends from her. One and all turn upon her. Her relations, of course. When did they ever fail to hit a poor fellow, or a poor girl, when she was down? The poor angel, the mother who sold her, comes and preaches at her. Q's wife turns up her little cursed nose and scorns her. Rooster, forsooth, must ride high the horse. Now he is married and lives at Chanticleer, and give a warning to avoid my company or his.
Do you know the only friend she ever had was that old woman with the stick? Old Q, the old witch whom they buried four months ago after noveling her money for the beauty of the family. She used to protect her. That old woman. Heaven bless her for it. Wherever she is now, the old hag, a good word won't do her any harm. Ha-ha! His laugh was cruel to hear. Why did I come down, he continued in reply to our sad queries. Why did I come down, do you ask? Because she was wretched and sent for me. Because if I was at the end of the world, and she was to say, Jack, come, I'd come. "'And if she bad you go,' asked his friends, "'I would go, and I have gone. "'If she told me to jump into the sea, "'do you think I would not do it?
"'But I go, and when she is alone with him, "'do you know what he does? "'He strikes her, "'strikes that poor little thing. "'He is owned to it. "'She fled from him and sheltered "'with the old woman who's dead. "'He may be doing it now. "'Why did I ever shake hands with him?' That's humiliation sufficient, isn't it? But she wished it, and I'd block his boots, curfs him, if she told me, and because he wanted to keep my money in his confounded bank, and because he knew he might rely upon my honor in hers, poor dear child, he chooses to shake hands with me, me, whom he hates worse than a thousand devils, and quite right, too. Why isn't there a place where we can go and meet, like man to man and have it over?
If I had a ball through my brains, I shouldn't mind, I tell you. I have a mind to do it for myself and Dennis. You don't understand me, Viscount. Il est vrai, says Brorac, with a shrug. I comprehend neither the suicide nor the Shasta post. What will you? I am not yet enough English, my friend. We make marriages of convenience in our country. Qui diable? And what follows, follows. But no scandal afterwards. Do not adopt our institutions, Ademais, my friend. Vous ne compensez pas non plus, mon pauvre Jacques. There is one way still, I think, said the third of the speakers in this scene. Let Lord Highgate come to Roseberry in his own name. Leaving that of Mr. Harris behind him. If Sir Brown's new comes want you, he can seek you there.
If you will go as you should, and God speed you, you can go, and in your own name too. Parbleu, c'est ça, cries Florac. He speaks like a book, the romance year. I confess, for my part, I thought that a good woman might plead with him. And touched that manly, not disloyal heart, now trembling on the awful balance between evil and good. "'Alon, let us make to come the drag,' cries Florac. "'Jack, thou returnest with us, my friend. Madame Ventanis, an angel, my friend, a cacra, though most charming, shall recoul to thee the sweetest sermons. My wife shall stand thee like a mother, a grandmother, "'Go make thy packet.' Lord Highgate was very much pleased and relieved, seemingly. He shook our hands.
He said he should never forget our kindness. Never. In truth, the didactic part of our conversation was carried on at much greater length than as here noted down. And he would come that evening, but not with us, thank you. He had a particular engagement. Some letters he must write. Those done. He would not fail us, and would be at Roseberry by dinner time.
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58 58 - Chapter 58: “One more Unfortunate” 21:02
One More Unfortunate. The fates did not ordain that the plan should succeed which Lord Highgate's friends had devised for Lady Clara's rescue or respite. He was bent upon one more interview with that unfortunate lady, and in that meeting the future destiny of their luckless lives was decided. On the morning of his return home, Barnes Newcomb had information that Lord Highgate, under a feigned name, had been staying in the neighborhood of his house, and had repeatedly been seen in the company of Lady Clara. She may have gone out to meet him, but for one hour more. She had taken a leave of her children on the day when she left home, and, far from making preparations for her own departure, had been engaged in getting the house ready for the reception of members of the family, whose arrival her husband announced to speedily to follow his own.
Ethel and Lady Anne and some of the children were coming. Lord Fallintosh's mother and sisters were to follow. It was to be a reunion previous to the marriage, which was closer to unite the two families. Lady Clara said yes to her husband's orders, rose mechanically to obey his wishes and arrange for the reception of the guests, and spoke tremblingly to the housekeeper as her husband jibed at her. The little ones had been consigned to bed early and before Sir Barnes' arrival. He did not think fit to see them in their sleep, nor did their mother. She did not know, as the poor little creatures left her room in charge of their nurses, that she looked on them for the last time. Perhaps, had she gone to their bedsides that evening, had the wretched, panic-stricken soul been allowed leisure to pause and to think and to pray, the fate of the morrow might have been otherwise, and the trembling balance of the scale have inclined to Wright's side.
But the pause was not allowed her. Her husband came and saluted her with his accustomed greetings of scorn and sarcasm and brutal insult. On a future day, he never dared to call a servant of his household to testify to his treatment of her, though many were ready to attend to prove his cruelty and her terror. On that very last night, Lady Clara's maid, a country girl from her father's house at Chanticleer, told Sir Barnes, in the midst of a conjugal dispute, that her lady might bear his conduct, but she could not, and that she would no longer live under the roof of such a brute. The girl's interference was not likely to benefit her mistress much. The wretched Lady Clara passed the last night under the roof of her husband and children.
Unattended, save by this poor domestic who was about to leave her, in tears and hysterical outcries, and then in moaning stupor. Lady Clara put to sleep with laudanum. Her maid carried down the story of her wrongs to the servants' quarters, and half a dozen of them took in their resignation to Sir Barnes as he sat over his breakfast the next morning in his ancestral hall. surrounded by the portraits of his august forefathers in his happy home. Their mutiny, of course, did not add to their master's good humor, and his letters brought him news which increased Barnes' fury. A messenger arrived with a letter from his man of business at Newcomb, upon the receipt of which he started up with such an execration as frightened the servant waiting on him.
And letter in hand, he ran to Lady Clara's sitting-room. Her ladyship was up. Sir Barnes breakfasted rather late on the first morning after an arrival at Newcomb. He had to look over the bailiff's books, and to look about him round the park and grounds, to curse the gardeners, to damn the stable and kennel grooms, to yell at the woodman for clearing not enough or too much. to rail at the poor old workpeople, brooming away the fallen leaves, etc. So Lady Clara was up and dressed when her husband went to her room, which lay at the end of the house, as we have said, the last of a suite of ancestral halls. The mutinous servant heard high voices and curses within. Then Lady Clara screams. Then Sir Barnes Newcombe burst out of the room.
locking the door and taking the key with him, and saluting with more clercest James, the mutineer, over whom his master ran. "'Curse your wife, and don't curse me, Sir Barnes Newcomb,' said James, the mutineer, and knock down a hand which the infuriated baronet raised against him, with an arm that was twice as strong as Barnes's own.' This man and maid followed their mistress in the sad journey upon which she was bent. They treated her with unutterable respect. They never could be caught to see that her conduct was wrong. When Barnes's counsel subsequently tried to impugn their testimony, they dared him, and hurt the plaintiff's case very much, for the balance had weighed over, and it was Barnes himself who caused what now ensued.
and what we learned in a very few hours afterwards from Newcomb, where it was the talk of the whole neighborhood. Florak and I, as yet ignorant of all that was occurring, met Barnes near his own lodge gate, riding in the direction of Newcomb, as we were ourselves returning to Rosebury. The Prince de Montcontour, who was driving, avidly saluted the baronet, who gave us a scowling recognition and rode on, his groom behind him. "'The figure of the garcon,' says Florek, as our acquaintance passed, "'is not agreeable. "'Of pale, he has become livid. "'I hope these two men will not meet, or evil will come. "'Evil to Barnes there might be,' Florek's companion thought, "'who knew the previous little affairs "'between Barnes and his uncle and cousin.
and that Lord Highgate was quite able to take care of himself. In half an hour after Florak spoke, the meeting between Barnes and Highgate actually had taken place, in the open square of Newcombe, within four doors of the King's Arms Inn. Close to which lives Lord Barnes Newcomb's man of business, and before which Mr. Harris, as he was called, was walking, and waiting till the carriage which he had ordered came round from the inn-yard. As Sir Barnes Newcomb rode into the place, many people touched their hats to him, however little they loved him. He was bowing and smirking to one of these, when he suddenly saw Bell's eyes. He started back, causing his horse to back with him on to the pavement, and it may have been rage and fury or accident and nervousness merely, but at this instant Barnes Newcomb, looking towards Ludd Highgate, shook his whip.
"'You cowardly villain,' said the other, springing forward. "'I was going to your house.' "'How dare you, sir,' cried Sir Barnes, still holding up that unlucky cane. "'How dare you, too—to—dare, you scoundrel,' said Belsayas. "'Is that the case you strike your wife with, you ruffian?' Belsayas seized and tore him out of the saddle. Flinging him, screaming down on the pavement. The horse, rearing and making way for himself, galloped down the clattering street. A hundred people were around Sir Barnes in a moment. The carriage which Belsize had ordered came round at this very juncture. Amidst the crowd, shrinking, bustling, expostulating, threatening, who pressed about him, he shouldered his way.
Mr. Taplow, aghast, was one of the hundred spectators of the scene. I am Lord Highgate, said Barnes' adversary. If Sir Barnes Newcombe wants me, tell him I will send him word where he may hear of me. And getting into the carriage, he told the driver to go to the usual place. Imagine the hubbub in the town. The conclaves at the inns, the talks in the counting-houses, the commotion amongst the factory people, the paragraphs in the Newcomb papers, the bustle of surgeons and lawyers after this event. Crowds gathered at the king's arms and waited round Mr. Spears, the lawyer's house, into which Sir Barnes was carried. In vain, policemen told them to move on. Fresh groups gathered after the seceders.
On the next day, when Barnes Newcomb, who was not much hurt, had a fly to go home, a factory man shook his fist in at the carriage window, and with a curse said, Serve you right, you villain. It was the man whose sweetheart this Don Juan had seduced and deserted years before, whose wrongs were well known amongst his mates, a leader in the chorus of hatred which growled round Barnes Newcomb. Barnes's mother and sister, Ethel, had reached Newcomb shortly before the return of the master of the house. The people there were in disturbance. Lady Anne and Miss Newcomb came out with pallid looks to greet him. He laughed and reassured them about his accident. Indeed, his hurt had been trifling. He had been bled by the surgeon, a little jarred by the fall from his horse.
But there was no sort of danger. Still, their pale and doubtful looks continued. What caused them? In the open day, with the servant attending, her Lady Clara Newcomb had left her husband's house, and a letter was forwarded to him that same evening from my lord Highgate, informing Sir Barnes Newcomb that Lady Clara Poulain could bear his tyranny no longer. and had left his roof, that Lord Highgate proposed to leave England almost immediately, but would remain long enough to afford Sir Barnes Newcomb the opportunity for an interview, in case he should be disposed to demand one, and a friend of Lord Highgate's late regiment was named who would receive letters and act in any way necessary for his lordship.
The debates of the House of Lords must tell what followed afterwards in the dreary history of Lady Clara Poulain. The proceedings in the Newcomb divorce bill filled the usual number of columns in the papers, especially the Sunday papers. The witnesses were examined by learned peers whose business, nay, pleasure, it seems to be, to enter into such matters, and, for the ends of justice and morality, Doubtless the whole story of Barnes Newcomb's household was told to the British public. In the previous trial in the court of Queen's Bench, how Grandly Sergeant Rowland stood up for the rights of British husbands. With what pathos he depicted the conjugal paradise, the innocent children prattling round their happy parents, the serpent, the destroyer, entering into that Belgrave in Eden.
The wretched and deserted husband, alone by his desecrated heart, and calling for redress on his country. Roland wept freely during his noble harangue. At not, a shilling under 20,000 pounds would be estimate the cost of his clients' injuries. The jury was very much affected. The evening papers gave Roland's address in extenso, with some pretty sharp raps at the aristocracy in general. The day, the principal morning journal of that period, came out with a leading article the next morning, in which every party concerned and every institution was knocked about. The disgrace of the peerage, the ruin of the monarchy, with a retrospective view of the well-known case of Gygus and Cordalis, the monstrosity of the crime, and the absurdity of the tribunal and the punishment were all set forth in the terrible leading article of the day.
But when, on the next day, Sergeant Rowland was requested to call witnesses to prove that connubial happiness which he had depicted so pathetically, he had none at hand. Oliver, Q.C., now had his innings. A man, a husband, and a father, Mr. Oliver could not attempt to defend the conduct of his unfortunate client. But if there could be any excuse for such conduct, that excuse he was free to confess the plaintiff had afforded, whose cruelty and neglect twenty witnesses in court were ready to prove. Neglect so outrageous, cruelty so systematic, that he wanted the plaintiff had not been better advised than to bring this trial, with all its degrading particulars, to a public issue. On the very day when the ill-omened marriage took place, another victim of cruelty had interposed as vainly.
As vainly as Sergeant Rowland himself interposed in court to prevent this case being made known, and with piteous outcries, in the name of outraged, neglected women. Of castaway children pleading in vain for bread, had besought the bride to pause, and the bridegroom to look upon the wretched beings who owed him life. Why had not Lady Clara Poulain's friends listened to that appeal? And so on, and so on. Between Roland and Oliver, the battle waged fiercely that day. Many witnesses were mauled and slain. Out of that combat, scarce anybody came well. Except the two principal champions, Roland Sargent and Oliver Q.C. The whole country looked on and heard the wretched story, not only of Barnes's fault and Highgate's fault, but of the private peccadilloes of their suborn footmen and conspiring housemaids.
Mr. Justice C. Sawyer charged the jury at great length. Those men were respectable men and fathers of families themselves. Of course they dealt full measure to Lord Highgate for his delinquencies, consoled the injured husband with immense damages, and left him free to pursue the further steps for releasing himself altogether from the tie which had been bound with effecting Episcopal benediction at St. George's, Hanover Square. So Lady Clara flies from the custody of her tyrant. But to what a rescue! The very man who loves her, and gives her asylum, pities and deplores her. She scarce dares to look out of the windows of her new home upon the world, lest it should know and reproach her. All the sisterhood of friendship is cut off from her.
If she dares to go abroad, she feels the sneer of the world as she goes through it, and knows that malice and scorn whisper behind her. People, as criminal but undiscovered, make room for her, as if her touch were pollution. She knows she has darkened the lot and made Richard the home of the man whom she loves best, that his friends who see her treat her with but a doubtful respect, and the domestics who attend her with a suspicious obedience. In the country lanes, or the streets of the country town, Neighbors look aside as the carriage passes in, which he sits splendid and lonely. Rough-hunting companions of her husband's come to her table. He is driven perforce to the company of flatterers and men of inferior sort.
His equals, at least in his own home, will not live with him. She would be kind, perhaps, and charitable to the cottagers round about her. But she fears to visit them, lest they too should scorn her. The clergyman who distributes her charities blushes and looks awkward on passing her in the village. If he should be walking with his wife or one of his children, shall they go to the continent and set up a grand house at Paris or at Florence? There they can get society. But of what a sort? Our acquaintances of Baden, Madame Schlagenbad, and Madame de Crucher-Cercy, and Madame d'Evry, and Mrs. Loder and Punter and Blackball and Dickos, will come, and dance, and flirt, and quarrel, and gamble, and feast round about her.
But what in common with such wild people has this poor, timid, shrieking soul? Even these scorn her. The leers and laughter on those painted faces are quite unlike her own sad countenance. She has no reply to their wit. Their infernal gaiety scares her more than the solitude at home. No wonder that her husband does not like home, except for a short while in the hunting season. No wonder that he is away all day. How can he like a home which he has made so wretched? In the midst of her sorrow, and doubt, and misery, a child comes to her. How she clings to it. How her whole being and hope and passion centers itself on this feeble infant. But she no more belongs to our story. With the new name she has taken, the poor lady passes out of the history of the Newcombs.
If Barnes Newcombe's children meet yonder solitary lady, do they know her? If her once husband thinks upon that unhappy young creature whom his cruelty drove from him, does his conscience affect his sleep at night? Why should Sir Barnes Newcomb's conscience be more squeamish than his country's, which has put money in his pocket for having trampled on the poor, weak, young thing, and scorned her, and driven her to ruin? When the whole of the accounts of that wretched bankruptcy are brought up for final audit, which of the unhappy partners shall be shown to be most guilty? Does the right reverend prelate, who did the benedictory business for Barnes and Clara, his wife, repent in secret? Do the parents who pressed the marriage, and the fine folks who signed the book, and ate the breakfast, and applauded the bridegroom's speech, feel a little ashamed?
O hymen hymene, the bishops, beetles, clergy, pube-openers, and other officers of the temple dedicated to heaven under the invocation of St. George will officiate in the same place at scores and scores more of such marriages. And St. George of England may behold virgin after virgin, often up to the devouring monster, mammon, with many most Respectable female dragons looking on, may see virgin after virgin given away, just as in the Saldan of Babylon's time, but with never a champion to come to the rescue.
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59 59 - Chapter 59: In which Achilles loses Briseis 1:00:42
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 59. In which Achilles loses Brises.
Although the years of the Marquis of Farentauche were few, he had spent most of them in the habit of command, and from his childhood upwards had been obeyed by all persons round about him. As an infant, he had but to roar, and his mother and nurses were as much frightened as though he had been a Libyan lion. What he willed and ordered was law amongst his clan and family. During the period of his London and Parisian dissipations, his poor mother did not venture to remonstrate with her young prodigal, but shut her eyes, not daring to open them on his wild courses. As for the friends of this person and house, many of whom were portly elderly gentlemen, their affection for the young Marquis was so extreme that there was no company into which their fidelity would not lead them to follow him.
And you might see him dancing at Mabil with veteran aides-de-camp looking on, or disporting with opera dances at a Trois-Fres banquet, which some old gentleman of his father's age had taken the pains to order. If his lordship, Count Almaviva, wants a friend to carry the lanthorn or to hold the ladder, Do you suppose there are not many most respectable men in society who will act, Figaro? When Palantos thought fit, in the fullness of time and the blooming pride of manhood, to select a spouse and to elevate a marchioness to his throne, no one dared gainsay him. When he called upon his mother and sisters in their ladyship's hangers-on and attendants, Upon his own particular kinsmen led captains and toadies to bow the knee and do homage to the woman whom he delighted to honor.
Those duteous subjects trembled and obeyed. In fact, he thought that the position of a marchioness of Farentosh was under heaven, and before men, so splendid that, had he elevated a beggar maid to that supply rank. The inferior world was bound to worship her. So my lord's lady mother, and my lord's sisters, and his captains, and his players of billiards, and the toadies of his august person, all performed obeisance to his bride-elect, and never questioned the will of the young chieftain. What were the private comments of the ladies of the family we had no means of knowing? But it may actually be supposed that his lordship's gentlemen-in-waiting, Captain Henchman, Jack Todd Hunter, and the rest, had many misgivings of their own, respecting their patron's change in life, and could not view without anxiety the advent of a mistress who might reign over him and them, who might possibly not like their company.
And might exert her influence over her husband to oust these honest fellows from places in which they were very comfortable. The jovial rogues had the run of my lord's kitchen, stables, cellars, and cigar boxes. A new Marchioness might hate hunting, smoking, jolly parties, and toad eaters in general, or might bring into the house favorites of her own. I am sure any kind-hearted man of the world must feel for the position of these faithful, doubtful, disconsolate vassals, and have a sympathy for their rueful looks and demeanor, as they eye the splendid preparations for the ensuing marriage, the grand furniture sent to my lord's castles and houses, the magnificent plate provided for his tables, Tables at which they may never have a knife and fork.
Castles and houses in which the poor rogues may never be allowed to pass the doors. When, then, the elopement in high life, which has been described in the previous pages, burst upon the town in the morning papers. I can fancy the agitation which the news occasioned in the faithful bosoms of the generous Todd Hunter and the attached henchman. My lord was not in his own house as yet. He and his friends still lingered on the little house in Mayfair, the dear little bachelor's quarters, where they had enjoyed such good dinners, such good suppers, such rare doings, such a jolly time. I fancy Hench coming down to breakfast and reading the morning post. I imagine Todd dropping in from his bedroom over the way, and Hench handing the paper over to Todd.
And the conversation which ensued between those worthy men, elopement in high life, excitement in income, and flight of Lady CL-N-COME, daughter of the late and And sister of the present Earl of D. Irking, with Lord H. Blank Gate, person over a counter between Lord H. Gate and Sir B. Ness, N- Come. Extraordinary disclosures, I say. I can fancy Hench and Todd over this awful piece of news. Pretty news, ain't it, Toddie, says Henchman, looking up from a paragon pie, which the faithful creature is discussing. Always expected it, remarks the other. Anybody who saw them together last season must have known it. The chief himself spoke of it to me. It'll cut him up awfully when he reads it. Is it in the morning post?
He has the post in his bedroom. I know he has rung his bell. I heard it. Bowman, has his lordship read his paper yet? Bowman the valet said, I believe you, he have read his paper. When he read it, he jumped out of bed and swore most awful. "'I cut as soon as I could,' continued Mr. Bowman, who was on familiar, nay contemptuous terms with the other two gentlemen. "'Enough to make any man swear,' says Toddy to Henchman, and both were alarmed in their noble souls, reflecting that your chieftain was now actually getting up and dressing himself, that he would speedily And in course of nature, come downstairs and then, most probably, would begin swearing at them. The most noble, Mungo Malcolm Angus, was in an awful state of mind when, at length, he appeared in the breakfast room.
Why the dash do you make a taproom of this, he cries. The trembling henchman, who has begun to smoke, as he has done a hundred times before in this bachelor's hall. flings his cigar into the fire. There you go. Nothing like it. Why don't you fling some more in? You can get him at Hudson's for five guineas a pound, bursts out the youthful peer. I understand why you're out of sorts, old boy, says Henchman, stretching out his manly hand. A tear of compassion twinkled in his eyelid and coist on his mottled cheek. Come away at old Frank Farentosh, a fellow who has been attached to you since before you could speak. It's not when a fellow's down and cut up and riled, naturally riled as you are. I know you are, Marquis.
It's not then that I'm going to be angry with you. Pitch into old Frank Henchman. Hit away, my young one. And Frank put himself into an attitude as if one prepared to receive a pugilistic assault. He bared his breast, as it were, and showed his scars and said, "'Strike!' Frank Henchman was a florid toady. My uncle, Major Pendennis, has often laughed with me about the fellow's pompous flatteries and ebullient fidelity." "'You have read this confounded paragraph,' says the Marquis." We have read it, and were deucedly cut up, too, says Henchman, for your sake, my dear boy. I remembered what you said last year, Marquis, cried Todd Hunter, not unadroitly. You yourself pointed out in this very room, I recollect, at this very table.
That night, Coralie and the little Spanish dancer and her mother supped here, and there was a talk about Highgate. You Yourself pointed out what was likely to happen. I doubted it, for I have dined at the Newcombs, and seen Highgate and her together in society often. But though you are a younger bird, you have better eyes than I have, and you saw the thing at once. At once! Don't you remember I and Coralie said how glad she was? Because Sir Barnes ill-treated her friend. What was the name of Coralie's friend, Hench? How should I know her confounded name? Henchman briskly answers. What do I care for Sir Barnes Newcomb and his private affairs? He is no friend of mine. I never said he was a friend of mine.
I never said I liked him. Out of respect for the chief here. I held my tongue about him, and shall hold my tongue. Have some of this pate, chief? No. Poor old boy. I know you haven't got an appetite. I know this news cuts you up. I say nothing and make no pretense of condolence, though I feel for you, and you know you can count on old Frank Henchman, don't you, Malcolm?" And again he turns away to conceal his gallant sensibility and generous emotion. "'What does it matter to me?' burst out the Marquis. Garnishing his conversation with the usual expletives, which adorned his eloquence when he was strongly moved. Or do I care for Barnes Newcomb and his confounded affairs and family? I never want to see him again.
But in the light of a banker, when I go to the city where he keeps my account, I say, I have nothing to do with him or all the Newcombs under the sun. Why, one of them is a painter. And will paint my dog Ratcatcher by Jove, or my horse, or my groom, if I give him the order. Do you think I care for any of the pack? It's not the fault of the Marchioness of Farentosh that her family is not equal to mine. Besides two others in England and Scotland, I should like to know what family is. I tell you what, Hench, I bet you five to two. that before an hour is over my mother will be here, and down on her knees to me, begging me to break off this engagement. "'And what will you do, Farintosh?' asked Henchman slowly.
"'Will you break it off?' No, shouts the Marquis, why shall I break off with the finest girl in England, and the best plucked one, and the cleverest and wittiest, and the most beautiful creature by Jove, that ever stepped for no fault of hers, and because her sister-in-law leaves her brother, who I know treated her infernally. We have talked this matter over at home before. I wouldn't dine with the fellow, though he was always asking me. Nor meet, except just out of civility, any of his confounded family. Lady Anne is different. She is a lady, she is. She is a good woman, and Q is a most respectable man, though he is only a peer of George III's creation. And you should hear how he speaks of Miss Newcomb, though she refused him.
I should like to know who is to prevent me marrying Lady Anne Newcomb's daughter. By Jove, you are a good plucked fellow, Parrotosh. Give me your hand, old boy, says Henchman. Ha, am I? You would have said, give me your hand, old boy, whichever way I determined, Hench. I tell you, I ain't intellectual, and that sort of thing, but I know my rank. And I know my place, and when a man of my station gives his word, he sticks to it, sir. And my lady and my sisters may go on their knees all round, and by Jove I won't flinch. The justice of Lord Farentausch's views was futilely proved by the appearance of his lordship's mother, Lady Glenlivet. whose arrival put a stop to a conversation which Captain Francis Henchman has often subsequently narrated.
She besought to see her son in terms so urgent that the young nobleman could not be denied to his parent. And, no doubt, a long and interesting interview took place, in which Lord Verandage's mother passionately implored him to break off a match upon which he was as resolutely bent. Was it a sense of honor, a longing desire to possess this young beauty, and call her his own, or a fierce and profound dislike to being balked in any object of his wishes, which actuated the young lord? Certainly had borne, very philosophically, delay after delay which had taken place in the devised union. And, being quite sure of his mistress, had not cared to press on the marriage, but lingered over the dregs of his bachelor cup complacently still.
We all know in what an effecting farewell he took leave of the associates of a vie de garçon. The speeches made in both languages, the presents distributed, the tears and hysterics of some of the guests assembled, The cigar box is given over to this friend, the ecran of diamonds to that, etc., etc., etc. Don't we know? If we don't, it is not Henchman's fault, who has told the story of Farentosch's betrothals a thousand and one times at his clubs, at the houses where he is asked to dine, on account of his intimacy with the nobility. Among the young men of fashion, or no fashion, whom his two-bottle mentor and burly admirer of youth has since taken upon himself to form. The farewell at Greenwich was so affecting that all traversed the cart, and took another farewell at Richmond, where there was crying too, for it was Eucharist, cried because Fair Calypso wanted to tear her eyes out.
And we're not only telemarchus, as was natural to his age, but mentor likewise. Quaff the wine cup too freely. You are virtuous, O reader, but there are still cakes and ale. Ask henchmen if there be not. You will find him in the park any afternoon. He will dine with you if no better man ask him in the interval. He will tell you story upon story regarding young Lord Farentosh. and his marriage, and what happened before his marriage, and afterwards, and he will sigh, weep almost at some moments, as he narrates this subsequent quarrel, and Ferentosha's unworthy conduct, and tells you how he formed that young man. My uncle and Captain Henchman disliked each other very much, I am sorry to say. Sorry to add that it was very amusing to hear either one of them speak of the other.
Lady Glenlivet, according to the captain, then, had no success in the interview with her son, who, unmoved by the maternal tears, commands, and entreaties, swore he would marry Miss Newcomb, and that no power on earth should prevent him. As if trying to thwart that man could ever prevent his having his way, ejaculated his quantum friend. But on the next day, After ten thousand men in clubs and coteries had talked the news over, after the evening had repeated and improved the delightful theme of our morning contemporaries, after Calypsis and Eucharist driving together in the park, and reconciled now, had kissed their hands to Lord Farentosh and made him their compliments, after a night of natural doubt, disturbance, defiance, fury.
As men whispered to each other at the club, where his lordship dined, and at the theatre where he took his recreation, after an awful time at breakfast, in which Messrs. Bowman, valet, and taut hunter, and henchman, captains of the Farentosh bodyguard, all got their share of kicks and growling. Behold, Lady Glenlivet came back to the charge again, and this time with such force that poor Lord Farentosh was shaken indeed. Her ladyship's ally was no other than Miss Newcomb herself, from whom Lord Valentosh's mother received, by that day's post, a letter which she was commissioned to read to her son. "'Dear Madam,' wrote the young lady in her firmest handwriting, "'Mama is at this moment in a state of such grief and dismay at the cruel misfortune And humiliation, which has just befallen our family, that she is really not able to write to you as she ought.
And this task, painful as it is, must be mine. Dear Lady Glenlivet, the kindness and confidence which I have ever received from you and yours, merit truth and most grateful respect and regard from me. And I feel after the late Fatal occurrence, what I have often and often owned to myself, though I did not dare to acknowledge it, that I ought to release Lord F. at once and forever from an engagement which he could never think of maintaining with a family so unfortunate as ours. I thank him with all my heart for his goodness and bearing with my humor so long. If I have given him pain, as I know I have sometimes, I beg his pardon, and would do so on my knees. I hope and pray he may be happy, as I feared he never could be with me.
He has many good and noble qualities, and in bidding him farewell, I trust I may retain his friendship, and that he will believe in the esteem and gratitude of your most sincere Ethel Newcomb. A copy of this farewell letter was seen by a lady who happened to be a neighbor of Miss Newcomb's when the family misfortune occurred, and to whom, in her natural dismay and grief, the young lady fled for comfort and consolation. "'Dearest Mrs. Pendennis,' wrote Miss Ethel to my wife, "'I hear you are at Rosebury. Do come to your affectionate E. N.' The next day it was, "'Dearest Laura, If you can, pray, pray come to Newcomb this morning. I want very much to speak to you about the poor children, to consult you about something most important.
Madame de Montcontour's pony carriage was constantly trotting between Roseberry and Newcomb in these days of calamity. And my wife, as in duty bound, gave me full reports of all that happened in the house of mourning. On the very day of the flight, Lady Anne, her daughter, and some others of her family arrived at Newcomb. The deserted little girl, Barnes' eldest child, ran with tears and cries of joy to her Aunt Ethel, whom she had always loved better than her mother, and clung to her and embraced her, and in her artless little words told her that Mama had gone away. And that Ethel should be her mama now. Very strongly moved by the misfortune, as by the caresses and affection of the poor orphaned creature, Ethel took the little girl to her heart, and promised to be a mother to her, and that she would not leave her, in which pious resolve I scarcely need say, Laura strengthened her, when, at her young friend's urgent summons, my wife came to her.
The household at Newcomb was in a state of disorganization after the catastrophe. Two of Lady Clara's servants, it has been stated already, went away with her. The luckless master of the house was lying wounded in the neighboring town. Lady Anne Newcomb, his mother, was terribly agitated by the news, which was abruptly broken to her, of the flight of her daughter-in-law and her son's danger. Now she thought of flying to Newcombe, to nurse him, and then feared lest she should be ill-received by the invalid, indeed ordered by Sir Barnes to go home, and not to bother him. So at home Lady Anne remained, with the thoughts of the suffering she had already undergone in that house, of Sir Barnes's cruel behavior to her at her last visit, which he had abruptly requested her to shorten, Of the happy days which he had passed as mistress of that house, and wife of the defunct Sir Brian, the sight of that departed angel's picture in the dining-room, and wheelchair in the gallery.
The recollection of little Barnes as a cherub of a child, in that very gallery, and pulled out of the fire by a nurse in the second year of his age, when he was all that a fond mother could wish. These incidents and reminiscences so agitated Lady Ann Newcomb that she, for her part, went off in a series of hysterical fits and acted as one distraught. Her second daughter screamed in sympathy with her, and Miss Newcomb had to take the command of the whole of this demented household. Hysterical Mama and Sister, mutineering servants, and shrieking abandoned nursery, and bring young people and old to peace and quiet. On the morrow after his little concussion, Sir Barnes Newcomb came home, not much hurt in body, but woefully afflicted in temper, and venting his wrath upon everybody round about him in that strong language which he employed when displeased.
And under which his valet, his housekeeper, his butler, his farm bailiff, his lawyer, his doctor, his disheveled mother herself, who rose from her couch, and her sal volatile to fling herself round her dear boy's knees. All had to suffer. Ethel Newcomb, the baronet's sister, was the only person in his house to whom Sir Barnes did not utter oaths or prefer rude speeches. He was afraid of offending her, or encountering that resolute spirit, and lapsed into a surly silence in her presence. Indistinct maledictions growled about Sir Barnes's chair when he beheld my wife's pony carriage drive up, and he asked what brought her here. But Ethel sternly told her brother that Mrs. Pendennis came at her particular request.
and asked him whether he supposed anybody could come into that house for pleasure now, or for any other motive but kindness. Upon which, Sir Barnes fairly burst out into tears, intermingled with execrations against his enemies and his own fate, in assertions that he was the most miserable beggar alive. He would not see his children, but with more tears he would implore Ethel never to leave them. and and on, would ask what he should do when she married, and he was left alone in that infernal house. Teapot's Esquire, of the Newcomb Independent, used to say afterwards that the baronet was in the direst terror of another meeting with Lord Highgate, and kept a policeman at the lodge gate, and a second in the kitchen, to interpose an event of a collision.
But Mr. Potts made this statement in after days, when the quarrel between his party and paper and Sir Barnes Newcomb was flagrant. Five or six days after the meeting of the two rivals in Newcomb Marketplace, Sir Barnes received a letter from the friend of Lord Highgate, informing him that his lordship, having waited for him according to promise, had now left England. And presumed that the differences between them were to be settled by their respective lawyers. Infamous behavior on a par with the rest of Lord Highgate's villainy, the baronet said, when the scoundrel knew I could lift my pistol arm. Barnes said, Lord Highgate fled the country, thus hinting that death, and not damages, were what he intended to seek from his enemy.
After that interview in which Ethel communicated to Laura, her farewell letter to Lord Farentauche, my wife returned to Roseberry with an extraordinary brightness and gaiety in her face and her demeanor. She pressed Madame de Montcontour's hands with such warmth. She blushed and looked so handsome, she sang and talked so gaily, that our host was struck by her behavior and paid her husband more compliments regarding her beauty. Amyability and other good qualities that need to be set down here. It may be that I like Paul DeFlorach so much, in spite of a certain undeniable faults of character, because of his admiration for my wife. She was in such a hurry to talk to me that night that Paul's game and the caution amusements were cut short by her visit to the billiard room.
And when we were alone by the cozy dressing room fire, she told me what had happened during the day. Why should Ethel's refusal of Lord Farentosh have so much elated my wife? Ah, cries Mrs. Pendennis, she has a generous nature, and the world has not had time to spoil it. Do you know there are many points that she never has thought of? I would say problems that she has to work out for herself. Only you, Pen. Do not like us poor ignorant women to use such a learned word as problems. Life and experience force things upon her mind which others learn from their parents or those who educate them, but for which he has never had any teachers. Nobody has ever told her, Arthur, that it was wrong to marry without love, or pronounce lightly those awful vows which we utter before God at the altar.
I believe If she knew that her life was futile, it is but of late she has thought it could be otherwise, and that she might mend it. I have read, besides that poem of Gerda, of which you are so fond, in books of Indian travels of Bayadere's dancing girls brought up by troops round about the temples, whose calling is to dance, and wear jewels, and look beautiful. I believe they are quite respected in, in pagoda land. They perform before the priests in the pagodas, and the Brahmins and the Indian princes marry them. Can we cry out against these poor creatures, or against the custom of their country? It seems to me that young women in our world are bred up in a way not very different. What they do they scarcely know to be wrong.
They are educated for the world, and taught to display. Their mothers will give them to the richest suitor, as they themselves were given before. How can these think seriously, Arthur, of souls to be saved? Weak hearts to be kept out of temptation, prayers to be uttered, and a better world to be held always in view, when the fanaties of this one are all their thought and scheme? Ethel's simple talk made me smile sometimes, do you know, and her strenuous way of imparting her discoveries. I thought of the shepherd boy who made a watch, and found on taking it into the town how very many watches there were, and how much better than his. But the poor child has had to make hers for herself, such as it is, and, indeed, is employed now in working on it.
She told me very artlessly her little history. Arthur, it affected me to hear her simple talk, and I blessed God for our mother, and my dear, and that my early days had had a better guide. You know that for a long time it was settled that she was to marry her cousin, Lord Q. She was bred to that notion from her earliest youth, about which she spoke, as we all can, about our early days. They were spent, she said, in the nursery and schoolroom for the most part. She was allowed to come to her mother's dressing-room, and sometimes to see more of her during the winter at Newcomb. She describes her mother as always the kindest of the kind, but from very early times the daughter must have felt her own superiority, I think, though she does not speak of it.
You should see her at home now, in their dreadful calamity. She seems the only person at the house who keeps her head. She told very nicely and modestly how it was Lord Q who parted from her, not she who had dismissed him, as you know the Newcombs used to say. I have heard that. Oh, that man, Sir Barnes, say so myself. She says humbly that her cousin Q was a great deal too good for her. And so is everyone almost, she adds, poor thing. Poor everyone. Did you ask about him, Laura? said Mr. Pendennis. No, I did not venture. She looked at me out of her downright eyes, and went on with her little tale. I was scarcely more than a child then, she continued, and though I liked you very much, who would not like such a generous, honest creature?
I felt somehow that I was taller than my cousin, and as if I ought not to marry him, or should make him unhappy if I did. When poor Papa used to talk, we children remarked that Mama hardly listened to him, and so we did not respect him as we should. And Barnes was especially scoffing and odious with him. Why, when he was a boy, he used to sneer at Papa openly before us younger ones. Now Harriet admires everything that Q says, and that makes her a great deal happier at being with him. And then, added Mrs. Pendennis, Ethel said, I hope you respect your husband, Laura. Depend on it. You will be happier if you do. Was not that a fine discovery of Ethel's, Mr. Penn? Clara's terror of Barnes frightened me when I stayed in the house, Ethel went on.
I am sure I would not tremble before any man in the world, as she did. I saw early that she used to deceive him and tell him lies, Laura. I do not mean lies of words alone, but lies of looks and actions. Oh, I do not wonder at her flying from him. He was dreadful to be with, cruel and selfish and cold. He was made worse by marrying a woman he did not love. As she was by that unfortunate union with him. Suppose he had found a clever woman who could have controlled him, and amused him, and whom he and his friends could have admired, instead of poor Clara, who made his home wearisome, and trembled when he entered it. Suppose she could have married that unhappy man, to whom she was attached early.
I was frightened, Laura, to think how ill this worldly marriage had prospered. My poor grandmother, whenever I spoke upon such a subject, would break out into a thousand jibes and sarcasms, and point to many of our friends who had made love matches, and were quarreling now as fiercely as though they had never loved each other. You remember that dreadful case in France, Duke de Blanc, who murdered his duchess? That was a love match, and I can remember the sort of screech with which Lady Q used to speak about it, and of the journal which the poor duchess kept, and in which she noted down all her husband's ill behavior. Hush, Laura, do you remember where we are? If the princess were to put down all Florex culpabilities and an album, what a ledger it would be, as big as Dr.
Portman's Christosome. But this was parenthetical, and after a smile and a little respite, the young woman proceeded in her narration of her friend's history. "'I was willing enough to listen,' Ethel said. "'To Grandmama, then, for we are glad of an excuse to do what we like. And I liked admiration, and rank, and great wealth, Laura. And Lord Parentosh offered me these.' I liked to surpass my companions, and I saw them so eager in pursuing him. You cannot think, Laura, what meannesses women in the world will commit. Mothers and daughters, too, in the pursuit of a person of his great rank. Those Miss Burrs, you should have seen them at the country houses where we visited together, and how they followed him.
How they would meet him in the parks and shrubberies. How they liked smoking, though I knew it made them ill. How they were always finding pretexts for getting near him. Oh, it was odious. I would not willingly interrupt the narrative, but let the reporter be allowed here to state that, at this point of Miss Newcomb's story, which my wife gave with a very pretty imitation of the girl's manner. We both burst out laughing so loud that little Madame de Montcontour put her head into the drawing-room and asked what we was a-laughin' at. We did not tell our hostess that poor Ethel and her grandmother had been accused of doing the very same thing, for which she found fault with Mrs. Burr. Miss Newcomb thought herself quite innocent.
Or how should she have cried out at the naughty behavior of other people? Wherever we went, however, resumed my wife's young penitent, it was easy to see, I think I may say so without vanity, who was the object of Lord Ferentosh's attention. He followed us everywhere, and we could not go upon any visit in England or Scotland, but he was in the same house. Grandmama's whole heart was bent upon that marriage, and when he proposed for me, I do not disown that I was very pleased in vain. It is in these last months that I have heard about him more, and learned to know him better—him and myself, too, Laura. Someone, someone you know, and whom I shall always love as a brother. Reproached me in former days for a worldliness about which you talk to sometimes.
But it is not worldly to give yourself up for your family, is it? One cannot help the rank in which one is born, and surely it is but natural and proper to marry in it. Not that Lord Farentosh thinks me or any one of his rank. Here Miss Ethel laughed. He is a sultan. And we, every unmarried girl in society, is his humblest slave. His Majesty's opinions upon this subject did not suit me. I can assure you, I have no notion of such pride. But I do not disguise from you, dear Laura, that after accepting him, as I came to know him better, and heard him, and heard of him, and talked with him daily, and understood Lord Farentosch's character. I looked forward with more and more doubt to the day when I was to become his wife.
I have not learned to respect him in these months that I have known him, and during which there has been mourning in our families. I will not talk to you about him. I have no right, have I, to hear him speak out his heart, and tell it to any friend. He said he liked me because I did not flatter him. Poor Malcolm. They all do. What was my acceptance of him, Laura, but flattery? Yes, flattery, and servility to rank, and a desire to possess it. Would I have accepted plain Malcolm Roy? I sent away a better-than-him Laura. These things have been brooding in my mind for some months past. I must have been but an ill companion for him. And indeed he bore with my waywardness much more kindly than I ever thought possible, and went for days since we came to this sad house, where he was to have joined us.
And I found only dismay and wretchedness, and these poor children deprived of a mother, whom I pity, God help her, for she has been made so miserable, and is now and must be to the end of her days. As I lay awake, thinking of my own future life, and that I was going to marry, as poor Clara had married, but for an establishment and a position in life, I, my own mistress, and not obedient by nature, or a slave to others as that poor creature was, I thought to myself, why shall I do this? Now Clara has left us, and is, as it were, Dead to us who made her so unhappy. Let me be the mother to her orphans. I loved the little girl, and she has always loved me, and came crying to me that day when we arrived, and put her dear little arms around my neck, and said, You won't go away, will you, Aunt Ethel?
In her sweet voice, and I will stay with her. I will try and learn myself that I may teach her and learn to be good, too, better than I have been. Will praying help me, Laura? I did. I am sure I was right, and that is my duty to stay here. Laura was greatly moved as she told her friend's confession, and when the next day at church the clergyman read the opening words of the service, I thought of peculiar radiance and happiness. Beamed from her bright face. Some subsequent occurrences in the history of this branch of the Newcomb family, I am enabled to report from the testimony of the same informant who has just given us an account of her own feelings in life. Miss Ethel and my wife were now in daily communication, and my dearesting each other with that female fervor, which Cold men of the world as we are, not only charry of warm expressions of friendship, but averse to entertaining warm feelings at all.
We surely must admire in persons of the inferior sex, whose loves grow up and reach the skies in a night, who kiss, embrace, console, Call each other by Christian names in that sweet, kindly sisterhood of misfortune and compassion who are always entering into partnership here in life. I say the world is full of Miss Nightingales, and we, sick and wounded in our private scutaris, have countless nurse-tenders. I did not see my wife ministering to the afflicted family at Newcomb Park, but I can fancy her there amongst the women and children. Her prudent counsel, her thousand gentle offices, her apt pity and cheerfulness, the love and truth glowing in her face, and inspiring her words-movement demeanor.
Mrs. Pendennis's husband, for his part, did not attempt to console Sir Barnes' Newcomb-Newcomb baronet. I never professed to have a halfpenny worth of pity at that gentleman's command. who owed Barnes his principality and his present comforts in life, did make some futile efforts and condolence, but was received by the baronet with such fierceness and evident hill humor that he did not care to repeat his visits, and allowed him to vent his curses and peevishness on his own immediate dependence. We used to ask Laura on her return to Roseberry, from her charity visits to Newcomb, about the poor suffering master of the house. She faltered and stammered in describing him, and what she heard of him.
She smiled, I grieved to say, for this unfortunate lady cannot help having a sense of humor, and we could not help laughing outright sometimes at the idea of that discomfited wretch. That overbearing creature overborne in his turn. Which laughter Mrs. Lara used to chide as very naughty and unfeeling. When we went into Newcomb, the landlord of the King's Arms looked knowing and quizzical. Tom Potts grinned at me and rubbed his hands. This business serves the paper better than Mr. Warrington's articles, says Mr. Potts. We have sold no end of independence, and if you polled the whole borough, I bet that five to one would say, Sir Scroogeum, Scroogeum was served right. By the way, what's up about the Marquis of Farentosh, Mr.
Pendennis? He arrived at the Arms last night, went over to the park this morning, and has gone back to town by the afternoon train. What had happened between the Marquis of Farentauch and Miss Newcomb, I am enabled to know from the report of Miss Newcomb's confidant. On the receipt of that letter of congé, which has been mentioned in a former chapter, his lordship must have been very excited, for he left town straightway by the evening's mail, and on the next morning, after a few hours of rest at his inn, Was at Newcomb Lodgegate demanding to see the baronet. On that morning it chanced that Sir Barnes had left home with Mr. Spear, his legal advisor, and hereupon the Marquis asked to see Miss Newcomb.
Nor could the lodgekeeper venture to exclude so distinguished a person from the park. His lordship drove up to the house, and his name was taken to Miss Ethel. She turned very pale when she heard of it. And my wife divined at once who was her visitor. Lady Anne had not left her room as yet. Laura Pendennis remained in command of the little conclave of children, with whom the two ladies were sitting when Lord Farentosh arrived. Little Clara wanted to go with her aunt as she rose to leave the room. The child could scarcely be got to part from her now. At the end of an hour, the carriage was seen driving away. And Ethel returned looking as pale as before, and red about the eyes. Miss Clara's mutton-chop for dinner, coming in at the same time, the child was not so presently eager for her aunt's company.
Aunt Ethel cut up the mutton-chop very neatly, and then, having seen the child comfortably seated at her meal, went with her friend into a neighboring apartment. Of course, with some pretext of showing Laura a picture. Or a piece of china, or a new child's frock, or with some other hypocritical pretense by which the ingenuous female attendants pretended to be utterly blinded. And there, I have no doubt, before beginning her story, dearest Laura embraced dearest Ethel and vice versa. He is gone, at length gasped dearest Ethel. Poor young man, sighed dearest Laura. Was he very unhappy, Ethel? He was more angry, Ethel's answers. He had a right to be hurt, but not to speak as he did. He lost his temper quite at last, and broke out in the most frantic reproaches.
He forgot all respect and even gentlemanlike behavior. Do you know he used words? Words such as Barnes uses sometimes when he is angry. And dear, this language to me. I was sorry till then, very sorry, and very much moved. But I know more now than ever that I was right in refusing Lord Farentosh. Dearest Laura now pressed for an account of all that had happened, which may be briefly told as follows. Feeling very deeply upon the subject which brought him to Miss Newcomb, it was no wonder that Lord Farentaugh spoke at first in a way which moved her. He said he thought her letters to his mother was very rightly written under the circumstances, and thanked her for her generosity in offering to release him from his engagement.
But the affair The painful circumstance of Highgate, and that which had happened in the Newcomb family, was no fault of Miss Newcomb's, and Lord Farentosh could not think of holding her accountable. His friends had long urged him to marry, and it was by his mother's own wish that the engagement was formed, which he was determined to maintain. In his course through the world, of which he was getting very tired, He had never seen a woman, a lady who was so—you understand, Ethel—whom he admired so much, who was likely to make so good a wife for him as you are. You allude, he continued, to differences we have had, and we have had them, but many of them, I own, have been for my fault. I have been bred up in a different way to most young men.
I cannot help it if I have had temptations to which other men are not exposed, and have been placed by providence in a high rank of life. I am sure if you share it with me, you will adorn it, and be in every way worthy of it, and make me much better than I have been. If you knew what a night of agony I passed after my mother read that letter to me, I know you'd pity me, Ethel. I know you would. The idea of losing you makes me wild. My mother was dreadfully alarmed when she saw the state I was in. So was the doctor. I assure you he was. And I had no rest at all, and no peace of mind, until I determined to come down to you and say that I adored you, and you only, and that I would hold to my engagement in spite of everything.
And proved to you that, that no other man in the world could love you more sincerely than I do. Here the young gentleman was so overcome that he paused in his speech and gave way to an emotion, for which surely no man who has been in the same condition with Lord Farandosh will blame him. Miss Newcomb was also much touched by this exhibition of natural feeling. And, I dare say, it was at this time that her eyes showed the first symptoms of that malady, of which the traces were visible an hour afterward. "'You are very generous and kind to me, Lord Farentaugh,' she said. "'Your constancy honors me very much, and proves how good and loyal you are. But—' But do not think hardly of me for saying that the more I have thought of what has happened here are the wretched consequences of interested marriages, the long union growing each day so miserable that at last it becomes intolerable and is burst asunder, as in poor Clara's case.
The more I am resolved not to commit that first fatal step of entering into a marriage without the degree of affection which people who take that vow ought to feel for one another. Affection? Can you doubt it? Gracious heavens, I adore you! Isn't my being here a proof that I do? cries the young lady's lover. But I answered the girl. I have asked my own heart that question before now. I have thought to myself, if he comes after all, if his affection for me survives this disgrace of our family, as it has, and every one of us should be thankful to you, ought I not to show at least gratitude for so much kindness and honor, and devote myself to one who makes such sacrifices for me? But before all things, I owe you the truth, Lord Farentosh.
I never could make you happy. I know I could not, nor obey you as you were accustomed to be obeyed, not give you such a devotion as you have a right to expect from your wife. I thought I might once. I can't now. I know that I took you because you were rich. And had a great name, not because you were honest and attached to me as you show yourself to be. I ask your pardon for the deceit I practiced on you. Look at Clara, poor child, and her misery. My pride, I know, would never have let me fall as far as she has done. But, oh, I am humiliated to think that I could have been made to say I would take the first step in that awful career. What career in God's name, cries the astonished suitor? Humiliated, Ethel?
Who's going to humiliate you? I suppose there is no woman in England who need be humiliated by becoming my wife. I should like to see the one that I can't pretend to, or to royal blood if I like. It's not better than mine. Humiliated indeed. That is news. Ha ha. You don't suppose that your pedigree, which I know all about, and the Newcomb family, with your barber's surgeon to Edward the Confessor, are equal to? To yours? No. It is not very long that I have learned to disbelieve in that story altogether. I fancy it was an odd whim of my poor father's, and that our family were quite poor people. I knew it," said Lord Parentage. Do you suppose there was not plenty of women to tell it to me? It was not because we were poor that I am ashamed at the one on.
That cannot be our fault, though some of us seem think it is, as they hide the truth so. One of my uncles used to tell me that my grandfather's father was a laborer in Newcomb. But I was a child then, and liked to believe the prettiest story ever. "'As if it matters,' cries Lord Flarentage. "'As if it matters in your wife, n'est-ce pas?' "'I never thought that it would. I should have told you, as it was my duty to tell you all. It was not my ancestors you cared for, and it is you yourself that your wife must swear before heaven to love.' Of course it's me, answers the young man, not quite understanding the train of ideas in his companion's mind. And I've given up everything, everything, and have broken off with my old habits and—and things, you know, and intend to lead regular life.
And will never go to Tattersalls again, nor bet a shilling, nor touch another cigar if you like—that is, if you don't like. For I love you so, Ethel. I do, with all my heart, I do. You are very generous and kind, Lord Parentosh, Ethel said. It is myself, not you, I doubt. Oh, I am humiliated to make such a confession. How humiliated! Ethel withdrew the hand when the young nobleman endeavored to seize. If, she continued, if I found it was your birth and your name and your wealth that I coveted and had nearly taken, ought I not to feel humiliated and ask pardon of you and of God? Oh, what perjuries poor Clara was made to speak, and see what has befallen her. We stood by and heard her without being shocked.
We applauded, even, and to what shame and misery we brought her. Why did her parents and mine consign her to such ruin? She might have lived pure and happy but for us. With her example before me, not her flight, poor child. I am not afraid of that happening to me. But her long solitude, the misery of her wasted years, my brother's own wretchedness and faults aggravated a hundredfold by his unhappy union with her. I must pause while it is yet time, and recall a promise which I know I should make you unhappy if I fulfilled. I ask your pardon that I deceived you, Lord Farentosh, and feel the shame for myself that I could have consented to do so. Do you mean, cried the young Marquis, that after my conduct to you, after my loving you, so that even this, this disgrace in your family don't prevent my going on?
After my mother has been down on her knees to me to break off. And I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't. After all white sneering at me and laughing at me. And all my friends, friends of my family, who would go to, go anywhere for me. Advising me and saying, Farentosh, what a fool you are. Break off this match. And I wouldn't back out. Because I loved you so. By heaven, and because, as a man and a gentleman, when I give my word, I keep it. Do you mean that you throw me over? It's a shame. It's a shame. And again there were tears of rage and anguish in Farentosha's eyes. What I did was a shame, my lord, Ethel said humbly. And again I ask your pardon for it. What I do now is only to tell you the truth, and to grieve with all my soul for the falsehood—yes, the falsehood—which I told you, and which has given your kind heart such cruel pain.
Yes, it was a falsehood, the poor lad cried out. You follow a fellow, and you make a fool of him, and you make him frantic in love with you, and then you fling him over. I wonder you can look me in the face after such an infernal treason. You've done it to me, fellas, before. I know you have. Everybody said so, and warned me. You draw them on, and get them to be in love, and then you fling them away. And I go back to London, and be made the laughing stock of the whole town. I Who might marry any woman in Europe, and who am at the head of the nobility of England? Upon my word, if you will believe me after deceiving you once, Ethel interposed, still very humbly, I will never say that it was I who withdrew from you, and that it was not you who refused me.
What has happened here fully authorizes you. Let the rupture of the engagement come from you, my lord. Indeed, indeed, I would spare you all the pain I can. I have done you wrong enough already, Lord Farentosh. And now the Marquis burst forth with tears and imprecations, wild cries of anger, love, and disappointment, so fierce and incoherent that the lady to whom they were addressed did not repeat them to her confidant. Only she generously charged Laura to remember, if ever she heard the matter talked of in the world, that it was Lord Carantosh's family which broke off the marriage, but that his lordship had acted most kindly and generously throughout the whole affair. He went back to London in such a state of fury, and raved so wildly amongst his friends against the whole Newcomb family that many men knew what the case really was.
But all women averred that that intriguing, worldly Ethel Newcomb, the apt pupil of her wicked old grandmother, had met with a deserved rebuff. That, after doing everything in her power to catch the great party, Lord Farentaugh, who had long been tired of her, flung her over, not liking the connection, and that she was living out of the world now at Newcomb. Under the pretense of taking care of that unfortunate Lady Clara's children, but really because she was pining away for Lord Farentaugh, who, as we all know, married six months afterward.
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60 60 - Chapter 60: In which we write to the Colonel 10:43
Chapter Sixty, in which we write to the Colonel. Deeming that her brother Barnes had cares enough of his own presently at hand, Ethel did not think fit to confide to him the particulars of her interview with Lord Farentosh, nor even was poor Lady Anne informed that she had lost a noble son-in-law. The news would come to both of them soon enough, Ethel thought, and indeed, before many hours were over, it reached Sir Barnes Newcomb in a very abrupt and unpleasant way. He had dismal occasion now to see his lawyers every day, And on the day after Lord Farentosh's abrupt visit and departure, Sir Barnes, going into Newcombe upon his own unfortunate affairs, was told by his attorney, Mr. Spears, how the Marquess of Farentosh had slept for a few hours at the King's Arms, and returned to the town the same evening by the train.
We may add that his lordship had accompanied the very room in which Lord Highgate had previously slept, And Mr. Taplow recommends the bed accordingly, and shows pride it with to this very day. Much disturbed by this intelligence, Sir Barnes was making his way to his cheerless home in the evening, when, near his own gate, he overtook another messenger. This was the railway porter, who daily brought telegraphic messages from his uncle and the London bank. The message of the day was, Consul so-and-so, French rent so much. Highgate's and Farentoche's accounts withdrawn. The wretched keeper of the lodge owned, with trembling, in reply to the curses and queries of his employer, that the gentleman, calling himself the Marquis of Farentoche, had gone up to the house the day before, and come away an hour afterwards, did not like to speak to Sir Barnes when he came home.
Sir Barnes looked so bad-like. Now, of course, there could be no concealment from her brother, and Ethel and Barnes had a conversation. in which the latter expressed himself with the freedom of language which characterized the head of the house of Newcombe. Madame de Moncontour's pony-chaise was in waiting at the hall door when the owner of the house entered it, and my wife was just taking leave of Ethel and her little people, when Sir Barnes Newcombe entered the ladies' sitting-room. The livid scowl with which Barnes greeted my wife surprised that lady, though it did not induce her to prolong her visit to her friend. As Laura took leave, she heard Sir Brown screaming to the nurses to, "'Take those little beggars away,' and she rightly conjectured that some more unpleasantries had occurred to disturb the luckless gentleman's temper.
On the morrow, dearest Ethel's usual courier, one of the boys from the lodge, trotted over on his donkey to dearest Laura at Rosebury with one of those missives which were daily passing between the ladies. This letter said, Barnes, ma fein, you seem terrible here. I was obliged to tell him everything about Lord F, and to use the plainest language. At first, he forbade you the house. He thinks that you have been the cause of F's dismissal, and charged me, most unjustly, with a desire to bring back poor C.N. I replied as became me, and told him fairly I would leave the house if odious insulting charges were made against me if my friends were not received. He stormed. He cried. He employed his usual language.
He was in a dreadful state. He valented and asked pardon. He goes to town tonight by the mail train. Of course, you come as usual, dear, dear Laura. I am miserable without you, and you know I cannot leave poor Mama. Clerican sends a thousand kisses to little Artie, and I am his mother's always affectionate. E.N. Will the gentlemen like to shoot our pheasants? Please ask the Prince to let Warren know when. I sent a brace to poor dear old Mrs. Mason, and had such a nice letter from her. And who is poor dear Mrs. Mason? asks Mr. Pendennis, as yet but imperfectly acquainted with the history of the Newcombs. And Laura told me, perhaps I had heard before and forgotten, that Mrs. Mason was an old nurse and pensioner of the Colonel's, and how he had been to see her for the sake of old times, and how she was a great favourite with Ethel, And Laura kissed her little son, and was exceedingly bright, cheerful, and hilarious that evening, in spite of the affliction under which her dear friends at Newcombe were labouring.
People in country houses should be exceedingly careful about their blotting paper. They should bring their own portfolios with them. If any kind readers will bear this simple little hint in mind, how much mischief may they save themselves. Nay, enjoy possibly. By looking at the pages of the next portfolio, In the next friend's bedroom in which they sleep. From such a book I once cut out, in Charles Slyboots' well-known and perfectly clear handwriting, the words, Miss Emily Hartington, James Street, Beckham Gates, London, and produced as legibly on the blotting paper as on the envelope which the postman delivered. After showing the paper round to the company, I enclosed it in a note and sent it to Mr.
Slyboots, who married Miss Hartington three months afterwards. In such a book at the club I read, as plainly as you may read this page, a holograph page of the Right Honourable the Earl of Bearacres, which informed the whole club of a painful and private circumstance, and said, My dear Green, I am truly sorry that I shall not be able to take up the bill for £856, which becomes due next to, and upon such a book going to write a note in Madame de Montcontour's drawing-room at Rosebury. What should I find but proofs that my own wife was engaged in a clandestine correspondence with a gentleman residing abroad? Colonel Newcomb, C.B. Montagne de Lacroix, Brussels. I read in this young woman's handwriting, and asked, turning round upon Laura, who entered the room just as I discovered her guilt.
What have you been writing to Colonel Newcomb about, miss? I wanted him to get me some lace, she said. To lace some nightcaps for me, didn't you, my dear? He's such a fine judge of lace. If I had known you had been writing, I would have asked you to send him a message. I want something from Brussels. Is the letter, erm, gone? In this artful way, you see, I just hinted that I should like to see letter. The letter is, erm, gone, says Laura. What do you want from Brussels, Pen? I want some Brussels sprouts, my love. They are so fine in their native country. Should I write to him to send the letter back? Palpitates poor little Laura. For she thought her husband was offended by using the ironic method.
No, you dear little woman. You need not send for letter the back, and you need not tell me what was in it, and I will bet you a hundred yards of lace to a cotton nightcap. And you know whether I, madame, am a man of bonnet de coton? I will let you that I know what you have been writing about, under pretence of a message about lace to our Colonel. He promised to send it to me. He really did. Lady Rock Minister gave me twenty pounds," gasped Laura. Under pretence of lace, you have been sending over a love message. You want to see whether Clive is still in his old mind. You think the coast is now clear, and that dearest Ethel may like him. You think Mrs. Mason is growing very old and infirm, and the sight of her dear boy would—'Pen!
Pen!'' Did you open my letter?" cries Laura, and a laugh which could afford to be good humour, followed by yet another expression of the lips. Ended this colloquy. No, Mr. Pendennis did not see the letter. But he knew the writer, flattered himself that he knew women in general. Where did you get your experience of them, sir? Asks Mrs. Laura. Question answered in the same manner as the previous demand. Well, my dear, and why should not the poor boy be made happy? Laura continues, standing very close up to her husband. It is evident to me that Ethel is fond of him. I would rather see her married to a good young man. Whom she loves, than the mistress of a thousand palaces and coronets. Suppose—suppose you had married Miss Amorisa.
What a wretched and worldly creature you would have been by this time! Whereas now—now that I am the humble slave of a good woman, there is some chance for me, cries the model of husbands. And all good women are matchmakers, as we know very well. And you have had this match in your heart ever since you saw the two young people together. Now, madam, since I did not see your letter to the colonel, though I have guessed part of it, Tell me, what have you said in it? Have you by any chance told the Colonel that the Farentosh alliance was broken off?" Laura owned that she had hinted as much. You have not ventured to say that Ethel is well inclined to Clive. Oh no, oh dear no, but after much cross-examining and a little blushing on Laura's part, she is brought to confess that she had asked the Colonel whether he will not come and see Mrs.
Mason, who is pinning to see him, and is growing very old. And I find out that she has been to see this Mrs. Mason, that she and Miss Newcombe visited the old lady the day before yesterday, and Laura thought, from the manner in which Ethel looked at Clive's picture hanging up in the parlour of his father's old friend, that she really was very much etc. etc. So, the letter being gone, Mrs. Pendennis is most eager about the answer to it, and day after day examines the bag, and is provoked that it brings no letter bearing the Brussels postmark. Madame de Moncontour seems perfectly well to know what Mrs. Laura has been doing, and is hoping. "'What? No letters again today? Ain't it provoking?' she cries.
She's in the conspiracy too, and presently, Florek is one of the initiated. "'These women wish to becclure a marriage between the belle-misse and le petit-clair,' Florek announces to me. He pays the highest compliments to Miss Newcomb's person as he speaks regarding the marriage. "'I continue to adore your anglaise.' He is pleased to say. What of freshness, what of beauty, what roses! And then they are so adorably good. Go, Pendennis, thou art a happy coquin. Mr. Pendennis does not say no. He has won the twenty-thousand-pound prize, and we know there are worse blanks in that lottery.
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61 61 - Chapter 61: In which we are introduced to a New Newcome 16:00
No answer came to Mrs. Pendennis's letter to Colonel Newcomb at Brussels, for the Colonel was absent from that city, and at the time when Laura wrote, was actually in London, where their affairs of his own had called him. A note from George Warrington acquainted me with this circumstance. He mentioned that he and the Colonel had dined together at Baze's on the day previous, and that the Colonel seemed to be in the highest spirits. High spirits about what? This news put Laura in a sad perplexity. Should she write and tell him to get his letters from Brussels? She would, in five minutes, have found some other pretext for writing to Colonel Newcomb. Had not her husband, sternly cautioned the young woman to leave the matter alone.
The more readily, perhaps, because he had quarreled with his nephew, Sir Barnes, Thomas Newcomb went to visit his brother Hobson and his sister-in-law, bent on showing that there was no division between him and this branch of his family. And you may suppose that the admirable woman, just named, had a fine occasion for her virtuous conversational powers in discoursing upon the painful event which had just happened to Sir Barnes. When we fail, how our friends cry out for us. Mrs. Hobson's homilies must have been awful. How that outraged virtue must have groaned and lamented, gathered its children about its knees, wept over them and washed them, gone into sackcloth and ashes and tied up the knocker.
Confabulated with its spiritual advisor, uttered commonplaces to its husband, and bored the whole house. The punishment of worldliness and vanity, the evil of marrying out of one station. How these points must have been explained and enlarged on. Surely the peerage was taken off the drawing-room table and removed to Papa's study, where it could not open, as it used naturally once to high-gate, barren or farentage, marquee of, being shut behind wires and closely jammed in on an upper shelf between Blackstone's commentaries and the farmer's magazine. The breaking of the engagement with the Marquis of Parentage was known in Brinestone Square, and you may be sure interpreted by Mrs. Hobson in the light the most disadvantageous to Ethel Newcomb, a young nobleman with grief and pain Ethel's aunt must own the fact.
A young man of notoriously dissipated habits, but of great wealth and rank, had been pursued by the unhappy Lady Q. Mrs. Hobson, would not save by her niece, that were too dreadful, had been pursued and followed and hunted down in the most notorious manner, and finally made to propose. Let Ethel's conduct and punishment be a warning to my dearest girls, and let them bless heaven they have parents who are not worldly. After all the trouble and pains Mrs. Hobson did not say disgrace, the Marquis takes the very first pretext to break off the match and leaves the unfortunate girl forever. And now we have to tell of the hardest blow which fell upon poor Ethel. And that was her good uncle, Thomas Newcomb, believed the charges against her.
He was willing enough to listen out to anything which was said against that branch of the family. With such a traitor, double-dealer, dastard as Barnes at its head, what could the rest of the race be? When the Colonel offered to endow Ethel and Clive with every shilling he had in the world, had not Barnes, the arch-trader, temporized and told him falsehoods, and hesitated about throwing him off until the Marquis had declared himself? Yes, the girl he and poor Clive loved so was ruined by her artful relatives, was unworthy of his affection and his boys. was to be banished, like her worthless brother, out of his regard forever. And the man she had chosen in preference to is Clive, a Rouet, a Libertine, whose extravagance's anticipations were the talk of every club, who had no wit, not talents, not even constancy, for had he not taken the first opportunity to throw her off, to recommend him, Only a great title and a fortune wherewith to bribe her.
For shame, for shame! Her engagement to this man was a blot upon her, the rupture only of unjust punishment and humiliation. Poor unhappy girl! Let her take care of her wretched brother's abandoned children, give up the world, and amend her life. This was the sentence Thomas Newcomb delivered, a righteous and tender-hearted man, as we know, but judging in this case wrongly, and bearing much too hardly, as we know her betters must think, upon one who had her fault certainly, but whose errors were not all of her own making, who set her on the path she walked in. It was her parents' hands which led her. And her parents' voices, which commanded her to accept the temptation set before her. What did she know of the character of the man selected to be her husband?
Those who should have known better brought him to her, and vouched for him. Noble, unhappy young creature. Are you the first of your sisterhood, who has been bidden to traffic your beauty, to crush and slay your honest natural affections, to sell your truth and your life for rank and title? But the judge who sees not the outward acts merely, but their causes, infuse not the wrong alone, but the temptations, struggles, ignorance of erring creatures, we know has a different code to ours. To ours, who fall upon the fallen, who fawn upon the prosperous so, who administer our praises and punishments so prematurely, who now strike so hard, and anon spare so shamelessly. Our stay with our hospitable friends at Roseberry was perforce coming to a close, for indeed weeks after weeks had passed since we had been under their pleasant roof.
And in spite of dearest Ethel's remonstrances, it was clear that dearest Laura must take her farewell. In these last days, besides the visits which daily took place between one and other, the young messenger was put in ceaseless requisition, and his donkey must have been worn off his little legs with trotting to and fro between the two houses. Laura was quite anxious and hurt at not hearing from the colonel. It was a shame that he did not have over his letters from Belgium an answer that one which he had honored him by writing. By some information received who knows how. Our host was aware of the intrigue which Mrs. Pendennis was carrying on, and his little wife almost as much interested in it as my own.
She whispered to me in her kind way that she would give a guinea. That she would, to see a certain couple made happy together. That they were born for one another. That they were. She was for having me go off to fetch Clive. But who was I to act as Hyman's messenger, or to interpose in such delicate family affairs? All this while Sir Barnes Newcomb, Bart, remained absent in London, attending to his banking duties there. and pursuing the dismal inquiries which ended in the ensuing Michaelmas term in the famous suit of Newcomb v. Lord Highgate. Ethel, pursuing the plan which she had laid down for herself from the first, took entire charge of his children and house. Lady Anne returned to her own family, never indeed having been of much use in her son's dismal household.
My wife talked to me, of course, about her pursuits and amusements at Newcomb, in the ancestral hall which we have mentioned. The children played and ate their dinner. Mine often partook of his infantile button, in company with little Clara and the poor young heir of Newcomb, in the room which had been called my lady's own, and in which her husband had locked her. Forgetting that the conservatories were open, through which the hapless woman had fled. Next to this was the baronial library, a side of which was fitted with the gloomy books from Clapham, which old Mrs. Newcomb had amassed. Rows of tracts and missionary magazines, and dingy quarto volumes of worldly travel and history, which that lady had admitted into her collection.
Almost on the last day of our stay at Roseberry, the two young ladies bethought them of paying a visit to the neighboring town of Newcomb, to that old Mrs. Mason, who has been mentioned in a foregoing page in some yet earlier chapter of our history. She was very old now, very faithful to the recollections of her own early time, and oblivious of yesterday. Thanks to Colonel Newcomb's bounty, she had lived in comfort for many a long year past, and he was as much her boy now as in those early days of which we have given but an outline. There were Clive's pictures of himself and his father over her little mantelpiece, near which she sat in comfort and warmth by the winter fire which his bounty supplied.
Mrs. Mason remembered Miss Newcomb, prompted thereto by the hints of her little maid, who was much younger and had a more faithful memory than her mistress. Why, Sarah Mason would have forgotten the pheasants whose very tails decorated the chimney-glass, had not Keziah the maid reminded her that the young lady was the donor. Then she recollected her benefactor and asked about her father, the baronet. and wondered, for her part, why her boy, the Colonel, was not made baronet, and why his brother had the property. Her father was a very good man, though Mrs. Mason had heard he was not much liked in those parts. Dead and gone was he, poor man. This came in reply to a hint from Keziah, the attendant, bald in the old lady's ears, who was very deaf.
Well, well, we must all go, and if we were all good, like the Colonel, what was the use of staying? I hope his wife will be good. I am sure such a good man deserves one," added Mrs. Mason. The ladies thought the old woman doting, led thereto by the remark of Keziah the maid, that Mrs. Mason had lost her memory. And she asked who the other bonnie lady was, and Ethel told her that Mrs. Pendennis was a friend of the Colonel's and Clive's. Oh, Clive's friend! Well, she was a pretty lady, and he was a dear pretty boy. He drew those pictures, and he took off me in my cap with my old cat and all. My poor old cat that's buried this ever so long ago. She has had a letter from the Colonel, Miss, cries out Keziah.
Haven't you had a letter from the Colonel, Mom? It came only yesterday, and Keziah takes out the letter and shows it to the ladies. They read as follows. London, February 12, 1840. My dear old Mason, I have just heard from a friend of mine who has been staying in your neighborhood that you are well and happy, and that you have been making inquiries after your young scapegrace, Tom Newcomb, who is well and happy too, and who proposes to be happier still before any very long time is over. The letter which was written to me about you was sent to me in Belgium. At Brussels, where I have been living, a town near the place where the famous Battle of Waterloo was fought, and as I had run away from Waterloo, it followed me to England.
I cannot come to Newcomb just now to shake my dear old friend and nurse by the hand. I have business in London, and there are those of my name living in Newcomb who would not be very happy to see me and mine. But I promise you a visit before very long, and Clive will come with me. And when we come, I shall introduce a new friend to you, a very pretty little daughter-in-law, whom you must promise to love very much. She is a Scotch lassie, niece of my oldest friend James Binney Esquire of the Bengal Civil Service, who will give her a pretty bit of silver. And her present name is Miss Rosa Mackenzie. We shall send you a wedding cake soon, and a new gown for Keziah, to whom remember me. And when I am gone, my grandchildren after me will hear what a dear friend you were to your affectionate Thomas Newcomb.
Keziah must have thought that there was something between Clive and my wife, for when Laura had read the letter, she laid it down on the table, and sitting down by it, and hiding her face in her hands, burst into tears. Ethel looked steadily at the two pictures of Clive and his father, and she put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "'Come, my dear,' she said. "'It is growing late, and I must go back to my children.' And she saluted Mrs. Mason and her maid in a very stately manner and left them, leading my wife away, who was still exceedingly overcome. We could not stay long at Roseberry after that. When Madame de Molcantour heard the news, the good lady cried too. Mrs. Pendennis's emotion was renewed as we passed the gates of Newcomb Park on our way to the railroad.
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62 62 - Chapter 62: Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome 26:17
Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcomb. The friendship between Ethel and Laura, which the last narrated sentimental occurrences had so much increased, subsists very little impaired up to the present day. A lady with many domestic interests and increasing family, etc., etc., cannot be supposed to cultivate female intimacies out of doors with that ardor and eagerness which young spinsters exhibit in their intercourse. But Laura, whose kind heart first led her to sympathize with her young friend in the latter days of distress and misfortune, has professed ever since a growing esteem for Ethel Newcomb, and says that the trials and perhaps grief, which the young lady now had to undergo, had brought out the noblest qualities of her disposition.
She is a very different person from the giddy and worldly girl who compelled our admiration of late in the days of her triumphant youthful beauty, of her wayward generous humor, of her frivolities and her flirtations. Did Ethel shed tears in secret over the marriage which had caused Laura's gentle eyes to overflow? We might divine the girl's grief, but we respected it. A subject was never mentioned by the ladies between themselves, and even in her most intimate communications with her husband, that gentleman is bound to say his wife maintained a tender reserve upon the point, nor cared to speculate upon a subject which her friend held sacred. I could not, for my part, but acquiesce in this reticence, and, if Ethel felt regret and remorse, Admired the dignity of her silence and the sweet composure of her now-changed and saddened demeanor.
The interchange of letters between the two friends was constant, and in these the younger lady described at length the duties, occupations, and pleasures of her new life. She had quite broken with the world and devoted herself entirely to the nurture and education of her brother's orphan children. She educated herself in order to teach them. Her letters contained droll, yet touching confessions of her own ignorance and a determination to overcome it. There was no lack of masters of all kinds in Newcomb. She set herself to work like a schoolgirl. The little piano in the room near the conservatory was thumped by Aunt Ethel until it became quite obedient to her. And yielded the sweetest music under her fingers.
When she came to pay us a visit at Fair Oaks some two years afterwards, she played for our dancing children, our third is named Ethel, our second Helen, after one still more dear. And we were in admiration of her skill. There must have been the labor of many lonely nights when her little charges were at rest, and she and her sad thoughts sat up together. Before she overcame the difficulties of the instrument so as to be able to soothe herself and to charm and delight her children. When the divorce was pronounced, which came in due form, though we know that Lady Highgate was not much happier than the luckless Lady Clara Newcomb had been, Ethel's dread was lest Sir Barnes should marry again. and by introducing a new mistress into his house, she deprive her of the care of her children.
Miss Newcomb judged her brother rightly in that he would try to marry, but a noble young lady to whom he offered himself rejected him, to his surprise and indignation, for a beggarly clergyman with a small living, on which he elected to starve. And the wealthy daughter of a neighboring manufacturer, whom he next proposed to, honored with his gracious hand, fled from him with horror to the arms of her father, wondering how such a man as that should ever dare to propose marriage to an honest girl. Sir Barnes Newcomb was much surprised at this outbreak of anger. He thought himself a very ill-used and unfortunate man. A victim of most cruel persecutions, which we may be sure did not improve his temper, or tend to the happiness of his circle at home.
Peevishness and selfish rage quarrels with servants and governesses and other domestic disquiet. Ethel had, of course, to bear from her brother, but not actual personal ill-usage. The fiery temper of former days was subdued in her. But the haughty resolution remained, which was more than a match for her brother's cowardly tyranny. Besides, she was the mistress of sixty thousand pounds, and by many wily hints and piteous appeals to his sister, Sir Barnes sought to secure this desirable sum of money for his poor, dear, unfortunate children. He professed to think that she was ruining herself for her younger brothers, whose expenses the young lady was defraying—this one at college, that in the army, and whose maintenance he thought might be amply defrayed out of their own little fortunes, and his mother's jointure.
and, by ingeniously proving that a vast number of his household expenses were personal to Miss Newcomb and would never have been incurred but for her residence in this house, he subtracted for his own benefit no inconsiderable portion of her income. Thus the carriage horses were hers. For what need had he? A miserable bachelor, of anything more than a riding horse and a brogham. A certain number of the domestics were hers, and as he could get no scoundrel of his own to stay with him, he took Miss Newcomb's servants. He would have had her pay the coals which burned in his grate, and the taxes due to our sovereign Lady the Queen. But in truth, at the end of the year, with her domestic bounties and her charities round about Newcomb, which daily increased as she became acquainted with her indigent neighbors, Miss Ethel The heiress was as poor as many poorer persons.
Her charities increased daily with her means of knowing the people round about her. She gave much time to them and thought, visited from house to house, without ostentation, was awe-stricken by that spectacle of the poverty which we have with us always, of which the slight rebukes our selfish griefs into silence. The thought compels us to charity. Humility and devotion. The priests of our various creeds, who elsewhere are doing battle together continually, lay down their arms in its presence and kneel before it, subjugated by that overpowering master. Death, never dying out, hunger, always crying, and children born to it day after day. Our young London lady, flying from the splendors and follies in which her life had been passed, Found herself in the presence of these, threading darkling alleys which swarmed with wretched life, sitting by naked beds, whither by God's blessing she was sometimes enabled to carry a little comfort and consolation, or when she came heart-stricken by the overpowering misery, or touched by the patient resignation of the new friends to whom fate had directed her.
And here she met the priest upon his shift, the homely missionary bearing his words of consolation, the quiet curate pacing his round, and was known to all these, and enabled now and again to help their people in trouble. Oh, what good there is in this woman, my wife would say to me, as she laid one of Miss Ethel's letters aside. Who would have thought this was the girl of your glaring London ballroom? If she has had grief to bear, how it has chastened and improved her. And now I have to confess that all this time, whilst Ethel Newcomb has been growing in grace with my poor wife, poor Clive has been lapsing sadly out of favor. She has no patience with Clive. She drubs her little foot when his name is mentioned, and turns the subject.
Whither all the tears and pities fled now? Mrs. Lara has transferred all her regard to Ethel, and when that lady's ex-suitor writes to his old friend, no other news is had of him. Lara flies out in her usual tirades against the world, the hard, wicked, selfish world, which spoils everybody who comes near it. What has Clive done? In his vain apologist asks. That an old friend should be so angry with him. She is not angry with him. Not she. She only does not care about him. She wishes him no manner of harm, not the least, only she has lost all interest in him. And the Colonel, too. The poor good old Colonel was actually in Mrs. Pendennis's black books, and when he sent her the Brussels Vale, which we have heard of, she did not think it was a bargain at all.
Not particularly pretty. In fact, rather dear at the money. When we met Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcomb in London, whither they came a few months after their marriage, and where Rosie appeared as pretty, happy, good-natured a little blushing bride, as eyes need behold, Mrs. Pendennis's reception of her was quite a curiosity of decorum. "'Ay, not me see for well,' cried Laura. How on earth would you have me receive her? I talked to her about everything, and she only answered yes or no. I showed her the children, and she did not seem to care. Her only conversation was about millinery and Brussels balls, and about her dress at the drawing-room. The drawing-room! What business has she with such follies?
The fact is that the drawing-room was Tom Newcomb's affair, not his son's, who was heartily ashamed of the figure he cut in that astounding costume, which English private gentlemen are made to sport when they bend their knee before their gracious sovereign. Warrington roasted poor Clive upon the occasion, and complimented him with his usual gravity, until the young fellow blushed, and his father somewhat testily signified to our friend that his irony was not agreeable. "'I suppose,' said the colonel with great hauteur, "'that there is nothing ridiculous in an English gentleman entertaining feelings of loyalty and testifying his respect to his queen?' And I presume that Her Majesty knows best, and has a right order in what dresser subject shall appear before her.
And I don't think it's kind of you, George. I say, I don't think it's kind of you to quiz my boy, but doing his duty to his queen and to his father too, sir. For it was at my request that Clive went, and we went together, sir, to the levee, and then to the drawing-room afterwards with Rosie, who was presented by the lady of my old friend, Sir George Tuftoe, a lady of rank herself, and the wife of his braven officer as ever drew a sword. Warrington stammered an apology for his levity. But no explanations were satisfactory, and it was clear George had wounded the feelings of our dear, simple old friend. After Clive's marriage, which was performed at Brussels, Uncle James and the lady, his sister, whom we have sometimes flippantly ventured to call the campaigner, went off to perform that journey to Scotland, which James had meditated for ten years past.
And now little Rosie was made happy for life to renew acquaintance with little Josie. The Colonel and his son and daughter-in-law came to London, not to the bachelor quarters where we have seen them, but to an hotel, which they occupied until their new house could be provided for them, a sumptuous mansion in the Tibernian district, and one which became people of their station. We had been informed already what the Colonel's income was, and had the gratification of knowing that it was very considerable. The simple gentleman who would dine off a crust and wear a coat for ten years desired that his children should have the best of everything, ordered about upholsters, painters, carriage-makers, in his splendid Indian way.
Presented pretty Rosie with brilliant jewels for her introduction of court, and was made happy by the sight of the blooming young creature decked in these magnificences, and admired by all his little circle. The old boys, the old generals, the old colonels, the old key highs from the club, came and paid her their homage. The directors' ladies and the generals' ladies called upon her. And feasted her at fast banquets served on sumptuous plate. Newcomb purchased plate and gave banquets in return for these hospitalities. Mrs. Clive had a neat clothes carriage for evenings, and a splendid barouche to drive in the park. It was pleasant to see this equipage at four o'clock of an afternoon, driving up to Bayses, with Rosie most gorgeously attired reclining within.
And to behold the stately grace of the old gentleman as he stepped out to welcome his daughter-in-law, and the bow he made before he entered her carriage. Then they would drive round the park, round and round and round, and the old generals and the old colonels and old fogies and the ladies and daughters would nod and smile out at their carriages as they crossed each other upon this charming career of pleasure. I confess that a dinner at the Colonel's, now he appeared in all his magnificence, was awfully slow. No peaches could look fresher than Rosie's cheeks. No damask was fairer than her pretty little shoulders. No one, I am sure, could be happier than she. But she did not impart her happiness to her friends, and replied chiefly by smiles to the conversation of the gentleman at her side.
It is true that these were for the most part elderly dignitaries, distinguished military officers with blue-black whiskers, retired old Indian judges and the like, occupied with their vittles and generally careless to please. But that solemn happiness of the Colonel, whose child depicted, that look of affection with which he greeted his daughter as she entered, flounced to the waist, Twinkling with innumerable jewels, holding a dainty pocket handkerchief with smiling eyes, dimpled cheeks, and golden ringlets. He would take her hand, or follow her about from group to group, exchanging precious observations about the weather, the park, the exhibition, nay, the opera. But the old man actually went to the opera with his little girl.
and solemnly snoozed by her side in a white waistcoat. Very likely, this was the happiest period of Thomas Newcomb's life. No woman, save one perhaps fifty years ago, had ever seemed so fond of him as that little girl. What pride he had in her, and what care he took of her. If she was a little ailing, what anxiety and hurrying for doctors! What droll letters came from James Benny, and how they laughed over them! With what respectful attention he acquainted Mrs. Mack with everything that took place! With what enthusiasm that campaigner replied! Josie's husband called a special blessing upon his head in the church at Musselburgh, and little Joe herself sent a tinful of scotch bun to her darling sister with a request from her husband that he might have a few shares in the famous India Company.
The company was in a highly flourishing condition, as you may suppose, when one of its directors, who at the same time was one of the honestest men alive, thought it was his duty to live in the splendor in which we now behold him. Many Wethle City men did homage to him. His brother Hobson, though the colonel had quarreled with the chief of the firm, yet remained on amiable terms with Thomas Newcomb. And shared and returned his banquets for a while. Charles Honeyman, we may be sure, was present at many of them, and smirked the blessing over the plungeous meal. The Colonel's influence was such with Mr. Sherrick that he pleaded Charles's cause with that gentleman, and actually brought to a successful termination that little love affair in which we have seen Miss Sherrick and Charles engaged.
Mr. Sherrick was not disposed to part with much money during his lifetime. Indeed, he proved to Colonel Newcomb that he was not so rich as the world supposed him. But, by the Colonel's interest, the chaplaincy of Boggleywalla was procured for the Reverend C. Honeyman, who now forms the delight of that flourishing station. All this while we have said little about Clive, who in truth was somehow in the background in this flourishing Newcomb group. To please the best father in the world, the kindest old friend who endowed his niece with the best part of his savings, to settle that question about marriage, and have an end of it. Clive Newcomb had taken a pretty and fond young girl, Who respected and admired him beyond all men, and who heartily desired to make him happy.
To do as much would not his father have stripped his coat from his back, and put his head under Juggernaut's chariot wheel, and sacrificed any ease, comfort, or pleasure for the youngster's benefit. One great passion he had had, and close the account of it, a worldly, ambitious girl. How foolishly worshipped and passionately beloved no matter! Had played with him for years, had flung him away when a desolate suitor, with a great fortune and title, had offered himself. Was he to whine in despair because a jilt had fooled him? He had too much pride and courage for any such submission. He would accept the lot in life which was offered to him, no undesirable one, surely. He would fulfill the wish of his father's heart and cheer his kind, declining years.
In this way, the marriage was brought about. It was but a whisper to Rosie in the drawing-room, a start and a blush from the little girl as he took the little willing hand, a kiss for her from her delighted old father-in-law, a twinkle in good old James's eyes. And double embrace from the campaigner as she stood over them in a benedictory attitude, expressing her surprise at an event by which she had been jockeying ever since she set eyes on young Newcomb, and calling upon heaven to bless her children. So, as a good thing, when it is to be done, had best be done quickly. These worthy folks went off almost straightway to a clergyman. And were married out of hand, to the astonishment of Captains Hobie and Gobi when they came to hear of the event.
Well, my gallant young painter and friend of my boyhood, if my wife chooses to be angry at your marriage, shall her husband not wish you happy? Suppose we had married our first loves, others of us. Were we the happier now? Ask Mr. Pendennis, who sulked in his tents when his Costigan, his Versailles, was ravished from him. Ask poor George Warrington, who had his own way. Heaven help him. There was no need why Clive should turn monk, because No. 1 refused him, and, that charmer removed, why he should not take to his heart No. 2. I am bound to say. That when I expressed these opinions to Mrs. Laura, she was more angry and provoked than ever. It's in the nature of such a simple soul as Thomas Newcomb to see but one side of a question, and having once fixed Ethel's worldliness in his mind and her brother's treason, to allow no argument of advocates of the other side to shake his displeasure.
Hence, the one or two appeals which Laura ventured to make on behalf of her friend were checked by the good colonel with a stern negation. If Ethel was not guiltless, she could not make him see at least that she was not guilty. He dashed away all excuses and palliations. Exasperated as he was, he persisted in regarding the poor girl's conduct in its most unfavorable light. She was rejected, and deservedly rejected, by the Marquis of Farentosch. He broke out to me once, who was not indeed authorized to tell all I knew regarding the story. The whole town knows it. All the clubs ring with it. I blush, sir, to think that my brother's child should have brought such a stain upon our name. In vain, I told him that my wife, who knew all the circumstances much better, judged Miss Newcomb far more favorably, and indeed greatly esteemed and loved her.
"'Pshaw, sir,' breaks out the indignant colonel, "'your wife is an innocent creature, who does not know the world as we men of experience do, as I do, sir, and would have no more of the discussion. There is no doubt about it. There was a coolness between my old friend's father and us. As for Barnes Newcomb, we gave up that worthy, and the Colonel showed him no mercy. He recalled words used by Warrington, which I have recorded in a former page, and vowed that he only watched for an opportunity to crush the miserable reptile. He hated Barnes as a loathsome traitor, coward, and criminal. He made no secret of his opinion, and Clive, with the remembrance of former injuries, of dreadful heart pangs, the inheritor of his father's blood, his honesty of nature, and his impetuous enmity against wrong, shared to the full his sire's antipathy against his cousin, and publicly expressed his scorn and contempt for him.
About Ethel he would not speak. Perhaps what you say, Penn, is true, he said. I hope it is. Pray God it is. But his quivering lips and fierce countenance, when her name was mentioned, or her defense attempted, showed that he too had come to think ill of her. As for her brother, as for that scoundrel, he would say, clenching his fist, if ever I can punish him, I will. I shouldn't have the soul of a dog, if ever I forgot the wrongs that have been done me by that vagabond. Forgiveness? Are you dangling to sermons, Penn, at your wife's leading strings? Are you preaching that cant? There are some injuries that no honest man should forgive, and I shall be a rogue on the day I shake hands with that villain.
Clive has adopted the Iroquois ethics, says George Warrington, smoking his pipes intentiously, rather than those which are at present received among us. I am not sure that something is not to be said, as against the Eastern, upon the Western or Tomahawk or Ojibwe side of the question. I should not like, he added, to be in a vendetta or feud and to have you, Clive, and the old Colonel engaged against me. I would rather, I said, for my part, have half a dozen such enemies as Clive and the Colonel, than one like Barnes. You never know where or when that villain may hit you. And before a very short period was over, Sir Barnes Newcomb, Bart, hit his two hostile kinsmen such a blow as one might expect from such a quarter.
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Mrs. Clive at Home. Clive and his father did not think fit to conceal their opinions regarding their kinsmen, Barnes Newcomb, and uttered them in many public places when Sir Barnes's conduct was brought into question. We may be sure that their talk came to the baronet's ears, and did not improve his already angry feeling towards these gentlemen. For a while they had the best of the attack. The colonel routed Barnes out of his accustomed club at Bases, where also the gallant Sir George Tufto expressed himself pretty openly with respect to the poor baronet's want of courage. The colonel had bullied and browbeaten Barnes in the parlor of his own bank, and the story was naturally well known in the city.
Where it certainly was not pleasant for Sir Barnes, as he walked to change, to meet sometimes the scowls of the angry man of war, his uncle, striding down to the offices of the Bundlekin Bank, and armed with that terrible bamboo cane. But though his wife had undeniably run away after notorious ill-treatment from her husband, though he had shown two white feathers in those unpleasant little affairs with his uncle and cousin, though Sir Barnes Newcomb was certainly neither amiable nor popular in the City of London, his reputation as a most intelligent man of business still stood. The credit of his house was deservedly high. And people banked with him and traded with him, in spite of faithless wives and hostile colonels.
When the outbreak between Colonel Newcomb and his nephew took place, it may be remembered that Mr. Hobson Newcomb, the other partner of the firm of Hobson Brothers, waited upon Colonel Newcomb as one of the principal English directors of the BBC. In hope that although private differences would, of course, oblige Thomas Newcomb to cease all personal dealings with the Bank of Hobson, the affairs of the company in which he was interested ought not to suffer on this account, and that the Indian firm should continue dealing with Hobsons on the same footing as before. Mr. Hobson Newcomb represented to the Colonel, in his jolly frank way, that whatever happened between the latter and his nephew Barnes, Thomas Newcomb had still one friend in the house.
That the transactions between it and the India Company were mutually advantageous. Finally, that the manager at the Indian Bank might continue to do business with Hobson's as before. So the BBC sent its consignments to Hobson Brothers and drew its bills, which were duly honored by that firm. More than one of Colonel Newcomb's city acquaintances, among them his agent Mr. Jolly and his ingenuous friend Mr. Sherrick especially, hinted to Thomas Newcomb to be very cautious in his dealings with Hobson Brothers. And keep a special care lest that house should play him an evil turn. They both told that Barnes Newcomb had said more than once, in answer to reports of the colonel's own speeches against Barnes, I know that hot-headed, blundering Indian uncle of mine is furious against me on account of an absurd private affair and misunderstanding.
Which he is too obstinate to see in the proper light. What is my return for the abuse and rant which he lavishes against me? I cannot forget that he is my grandfather's son, an old man, utterly ignorant both of society and business here. And as he is interested in this Indian banking company, which must be preciously conducted when it appointed him as a guardian and overseer of its affairs in England, I do my very best to serve the company. And I can tell you, it's blundering, muddle-headed managers, black and white, owe no little to the assistance which they have had from our house. If they don't like us, why do they go on dealing with us? We don't want them and their bills. We were a leading house fifty years before they were born, and shall continue to be so long after they come to an end.
Such was Barnes's case, as stated by himself. It was not a very bad one, or very unfairly stated, considering the advocate. I believe he has always persisted in thinking that he never did his uncle any wrong. Mr. Jolly and Mr. Sherrick then both entreated Thomas Newcomb to use his best endeavors and bring the connection of the BBC and Hobson brothers to a speedy end. But Jolly was an interested party. He and his friends would have had the agency of the BBC and the profits thereof, which Hobsons had taken from them. Mr. Sherrick was an outside practitioner, a guerrilla amongst regular merchants. The opinions of one and the other, though submitted by Thomas Newcomb duly to his co-partners, the managers and London board of directors of the Bundlekin Banking Company, were overruled by that assembly.
They had their establishment and apartments in the city. They had their clerks and messengers, their managers' rooms and boardroom. There were meetings where no doubt great quantities of letters were read, vast letters produced, where Tom Newcomb was voted into the chair and voted out with thanks, where speeches were made and the affairs of the BBC properly discussed. These subjects are mysterious, terrifying, unknown to me. I cannot pretend to describe them. Fred Bayham, I remember, used to be great in his knowledge of the affairs of the Bundlekind Banking Company. He talked of cotton, wool, copper, opium, indigo, Singapore, Manila, China, Calcutta, Australia, with prodigious eloquence and fluency.
His conversation was about millions. The most astounding paragraphs used to appear in the Pell-Mell Gazette regarding the annual dinner at Blackwall, which the directors gave and to which he and George and I, as friends of the court, were invited. What orations were uttered? What flowing bumpers emptied in the praise of this great company? What quantities of turtle and punch did Fred devour at its expense? Colonel Newcomb was the kindly old chairman at these banquets, the prince, his son, taking but a modest part in the ceremonies and sitting with us, his old cronies. All the gentlemen connected with the board, all those with whom the BBC traded in London, paid Thomas Newcomb extraordinary respect.
His character for wealth was deservedly great, and of course multiplied by the tongue of rumor. F.P. knew, to a few millions of rupees, more or less, what the colonel possessed, and what Clive would inherit. Thomas Newcomb's distinguished military services, his high bearing, lofty courtesy, simple but touching garrulity. For the honest man talked much more now than he had been accustomed to do in former days, and was not insensible to the flattery which his wealth brought him. His reputation as a keen man of business, who had made his own fortune by operations equally prudent and spirited, and who might make the fortunes of hundreds of other people, brought the worthy colonel a number of friends.
And I promise you that the loudest hussas greeted his health when it was proposed at the Black Wall dinners. At the second annual dinner after Clive's marriage, some friends presented Mrs. Clive Newcomb with a fine testimonial. There was a superb silver coconut tree, whereof the leaves were dexterously arranged for holding candle and pickles. Under the coconut was an Indian prince on a camel. Giving his hand to a cavalry officer on horseback. A howitzer, a plow, a loom, a bale of cotton, on which were the East India Company's arms, a Brahmin, Britannia, and commerce with a cornucopia were grouped around the principal figures. And if you would see a noble account of this chaste and elegant specimen of British art, you will refer to the pages of the Pell-Mell Gazette of that year.
As well as to Fred Bayham's noble speech in the course of the evening when it was exhibited. The East and its wars and its heroes, Asai and Serenpatum, and Lord Lake and Lasawi too, calls out the Colonel greatly elated. Tiger hunting, palanquins, juggernaut, elephants, the burning of widows, all passed before us in F.P.'s splendid oration. He spoke of the product of the Indian forest, the palm tree, the coconut tree, the banyan tree, palms the colonel had already brought back with him, the palms of valor, one in the field of war. Cheers! Coconut-trees he had never seen, though he had heard wonders related regarding the milky contents of their fruit. Here at any rate was one tree of the kind, under the branches of which he humbly trusted often to repose.
And, if he might be so bold as to carry on the Eastern metaphor, he would say, knowing the excellence of the Colonel's claret and the splendor of his hospitality, that he would prefer a coconut day at the Colonel's to a Banyan day anywhere else. Whilst F.B.'s speech went on, I remember J.J. eyeing the trophy and the queer expression of his shrewd face. The health of British artists was drunk apropos of this splendid specimen of their skill, and poor J.J. Ridley, Esquire, A.R.A., had scarce a word to say in return. Ye and Clive sat by one another, the latter very silent and gloomy. When J.J. and I met in the world, we talked about our friend, and it was easy for both of us to see that neither was satisfied with Clive's condition.
The fine house in Tibernia was completed by this time, as gorgeous as money could make it. How different it was from the old Fitzroy Square mansion with its ramshackle furniture and spoils of broker shops and Totterham Court Road odds and ends. An Oxford Street upholsterer had been let loose in the yet virgin chambers, and that inventive genius had decorated them with all the wonders his fancy could devise. Roses and cupids quivered on the ceilings, up to which golden arabesques crawled from the walls. Your face, handsome or otherwise, was reflected by countless looking-glasses, so multiplied and arranged as, as it were. To carry you into the next street. You trod on Velvet, pausing with respect in the center of the carpet, where Rosie's cipher was worked in the sweet flowers which bear her name.
What delightful crooked legs the chairs had! What corner cupboards there were filled with dresden gimcracks, which it was a part of this little woman's business in life to purchase. What étages and pomponniers and chiffonniers! What awfully bad pastels there were on the walls! What frightful boucher and lacray shepherds and shepherdesses leered over the portiers! What velvet-bound volumes, mother-of-pearl albums, inkstands representing beasts of the field, prédéliatures, and wonderful knick-knacks I can recollect! There was the most magnificent piano. Though Rosie seldom sang any of her six songs now. And when she kept her couch at a certain most interesting period, the good Colonel, ever anxious to procure amusement for his darling, asked whether she would not like a barrel-woggin grinding fifty or sixty favorite pieces which a bearer could turn.
And he mentioned how Windows, of their regiment, who loved music exceedingly, had a very fine instrument of this kind out to Barrickport in the year 1810, and relays of barrels by each ship with all the new tunes from Europe. The testimonial took its place in the center of Mrs. Clive's table, surrounded by satellites of plate. The delectable parties were certainly gathered together. The Grand Barouche rolling in the park or stopping at the principal's shops. Little Rosie bloomed in millinery and was still the smiling little pet of her father-in-law. And poor Clive, in the midst of all these splendors, was gaunt and sad and silent. Listless at most times, bitter and savage at others, pleased only when he was out of the society which bored him, and in the company of George and J.J., the simple friends of his youth.
His careworn look and altered appearance mollified my wife towards him, who had almost taken him again into favor. But she did not care for Mrs. Clive, and the Colonel somehow grew cruel towards us. And to look askance upon the little band of Clive's friends, it seemed as if there were two parties in the house. There was Clive's set, J.J., the shrewd, silent little painter, Warrington, the cynic, and the author of the present biography who was, I believe, supposed to give himself contemptuous airs, and to have become very high and mighty since his marriage. Then there was the great, numerous, and eminently respectable set, whose names were all registered in Little Rosie's little visiting book, and to whose houses she drove round, duly delivering the cards of Mr.
and Mrs. Clive Newcomb and Colonel Newcomb, the generals and colonels, the judges and the fogies. The only man who kept well with both sides of the house was F. Bayham Esq. Who, having got into Clover, remained in the enjoyment of that welcome pasture, who really loved Clive and the Colonel, too, and had a hundred pleasant things and funny stories, the droll old creature, to tell to the little lady for whom we others could scarcely find a word. The old friends of the student days were not forgotten, but they did not seem to get on in the new house. The Miss Gandishes came to one of Mrs. Clive's balls, still in blue crepe, still with ringlets on their wizened old foreheads, accompanying Papa, with his shirt collars turned down, who gazed in mute wonder on the splendid scene.
Warrington actually asked Miss Gandish to dance, making woeful blunders, however, in the quadrille. While Clive, with something like one of his old smiles on his face, took out Miss Zoe Gandish, her sister. We made Gandish overeat and overdrink himself in the supper room, and Clive cheered him by ordering a full length of Mrs. Clive Newcomb from his distinguished pencil. Never was seen a grander exhibition of white satin and jewels. Smee-ar-ay. was furious at the preference shown to his rival. We had Sandy McCulloch, too, at the party, who had returned from Rome with his red beard, in his picture of the murder of the Red Common, which made but a dim effect in the octagon room of the Royal Academy, where the bleeding agonies of the dying warrior were veiled in an unkind twilight.
On Sandy and his brethren, little Rosie, looked rather coldly. She tossed up her little head in conversation with me, and gave me to understand that this party was only an omnium gatherum, not one of the select parties from which heaven defend us. We are poins, and nim and pistol growled out George Warrington as he strode away to finish the evening in Clive's painting and smoking room. Now Prince Hal is married and shares the paternal throne. His princess is ashamed of his brigand associates of former days. She came and looked at us with a feeble little smile as we sat smoking and let the daylight in on us from the open door and hinted to Mr. Clive that it was time to go to bed. So Clive Newcomb lay in a bed of town and tossed and tumbled there.
He went to fine dinners and sat silent over them, rode fine horses and black hair, jumped up behind the moody horsemen. He was cut off in a great measure from the friends of his youth, or saw them by a kind of stealth and sufferance. He was a very lonely poor fellow. I am afraid, now that people were testimonializing his wife and many an old comrade growling at his haughtiness and prosperity. In former days, when his good father recognized the difference which fate, and time, and temper, had set between him and his son, we have seen with what a gentle acquiescence the old man submitted to his inevitable fortune, and how humbly he bore that stroke of separation which afflicted the boy lightly enough, but caused the loving sire so much pain.
Then there was no bitterness between them. In spite of the fatal division, but now it seems as if there was anger in Thomas Newcomb's part, because, though come together again, they were not united. Though with every outward appliance of happiness, Clive was not happy. What young man on earth could look for more? A sweet young wife, a handsome home, of which the only encumbrance was an old father. Who would give his last drop of blood on his son's behalf? And it was to bring about this end that Thomas Newcomb had toiled and had amassed a fortune. Could not Clive, with his talents and education, go down once or twice a week to the city and take a decent part in the business by which his wealth was secured?
He appeared at the various boardrooms and city conclaves, yawned at the meetings, and drew figures on the blotting paper of the company, had no interest in its transactions, no heart in its affairs, went away and galloped his horse alone, or returned to his painting room, put on his old velvet jacket and worked with his pallets and brushes. Palettes and brushes. Could he not give up those toys when he was called to a much higher station in the world? Could he not go talk with Rosie? Drive with Rosie, kind little soul, whose whole desire was to make him happy? Such thoughts of these, no doubt, darkened the Colonel's mind and deepened the furrows round his old eyes. So it is. We judge men by our own standards, judge our nearest and dearest often wrong.
Many and many a time did Clive try and talk with the little Rosie, who chirped and prattled so gaily to his father. Many a time would she come and sit by his easel, and try her little powers to charm him. Bring him little tales about their acquaintances, stories about this ball and that concert, practice artless smiles upon him, gentle little booteries, tears perhaps, followed by caresses and reconciliation, at the end of which he would return to his cigar, and she, with a sigh and a heavy heart, to the good old man who had bidden her to go and talk with him. He used to feel that his father had sent her. The thought came across him in their conversations, and straightway his heart would shut up and his face grew gloomy.
They were not made to mate with one another. This was the truth. The shoe was a very pretty little shoe, but Clyde's foot was too big for it.
Just before the testimonial, Mr. Clive was in constant attendance at home, and very careful and kind and happy with his wife, and the whole family party went very agreeably. Doctors were in constant attendance at Mrs. Clive Newcomb's door. Prodigious care was taken by the good colonel, and wrapping her, and putting her little feet on sofas, and leading her to her carriage. The campaigner came over an immense flurry from Edinburgh, where Uncle James was now very comfortably lodged in Picardy Place, with the most agreeable society round about him. And all this circle was in a word very close and happy and intimate. But woe is me! Thomas Newcomb's fondest hopes were disappointed this time. His little grandson lived but to see the light and leave it.
And sadly, Sadly, those preparations were put away, those poor little robes and caps, those delicate muslins and cambricks over which many a care had been forgotten, many a fond prayer thought, if not uttered. Poor little Rosie. She felt the grief very keenly, but she rallied from it very soon. In a very few months, her cheeks were blooming and dimpling with smiles again. and she was telling us how her party was an omnium gatherum. The campaigner had aired this return to the scene of her northern exploits, not, I believe, entirely of the worthy woman's own free will. Assuming the command of the household, whilst her daughter kept her sofa, Mrs. Mackenzie had set that establishment into uproar and mutiny.
She had offended the butler. Outraged the housekeeper, wounded the sensibilities of the footmen, insulted the doctor, and trampled on the inmost corns of the nurse. It was surprising what a change appeared in the campaigner's conduct, and how little, in former days, Colonel Newcomb had known her. What the Emperor Napoleon I said respecting our Russian enemies might be applied to this lady. Grate la. And she appeared a tartar. Clive and his father had a little comfort and conversation in conspiring against her. The old man never dared to try, but was pleased with the younger spirit and gallantry in the series of final actions which, commencing over poor little Rosie's prostrate body in the dressing room, were continued in the drawing room.
Resumed with terrible vigor on the enemy's part in the dining room, and ended to the triumph of the whole establishment at the outside of the hall door. When the routed Tardif force had fled back to its native north, Rosie made a confession, which Clive told me afterwards, bursting with bitter laughter. You and Papa seem to be very much agitated, she said. Rosie called the Colonel Papa in the absence of the campaigner. I do not mind it a bit, except just at first, when it made me a little nervous. Mama used always to be so. She used to scold and scold all day, both me and Josie in Scotland, till Grandmama sent her away. And then in Fitzroy Square, and then in Brussels, she used to box my ears.
And go into such tantrums, and I think adds Rosie, with one of her sweetest smiles. She had quarreled with Uncle James before she came to us. She used to box Rosie's ears, roars our poor Clive, and go into such tantrums in Fitzroy Square and Brussels afterwards, and the pair would come down with their arms round each other's waists, smirking and smiling, as if they had done nothing but kiss each other all "'Their mortal lives. This is what we know about women. This is what we get, and find years afterwards, when we think we have married a smiling, artless young creature. Are you all such hypocrites, Mrs. Pendennis?' And he pulled his mustachios in his wrath. "'Poor Clive,' says Laura very kindly.
"'You would not have had her tell tales of her mother, would you?' Of course not, breaks out Clive. That is what you all say, and so you are hypocrites out of sheer virtue. It was the first time Laura had called him Clive for many a day. She was becoming reconciled to him. We had our own opinion about the young fellow's marriage. And to sum up all, upon a casual raconteur, with the young gentleman in question, Whom we saw descending from a handsome at the steps of the flag, pell-mell, I opined that dark thoughts of Hobie had entered into Clive Newcomb's mind. Othello-like, he scowled after that unconscious Cassio as the other passed into the club in his lacquered boots.
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64 64 - Chapter 64: Absit Omen 18:03
At the first of the Blackwall festivals, Hobson Newcomb was present, in spite of the quarrel which had taken place between his elder brother and the chief of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcomb. But it was the individual Barnes and the individual Thomas who had had a difference together. The Bundlekin Bank was not at variance with its chief house of commission in London. No man drank prosperity to the BBC, upon occasion of this festival, with greater fervour than Hobson Newcomb and the manner in which he just slightly alluded in his own little speech of thanks to the notorious differences between Colonel Newcomb and his nephew, praying that these might cease someday, and meanwhile... That the confidence between the great Indian establishment and its London agents might never diminish was appreciated and admired by six and thirty gentlemen, all brimful of claret and enthusiasm, and in that happy state of mind in which men appreciate and admire everything.
At the second dinner, When the testimonial was presented, Hobson was not present, nor did his name figure amongst the engraving on the trunk of Mr. Newcomb's allegorical silver coconut tree. As we traveled homewards in the omnibus, Fred Bayham noticed the circumstance to me. I have looked over the list of names, says he. Not merely that on the trunk, sir, but the printed list. It was rolled up and placed in one of the nests on the top of the tree. Why is Hobson's name not there? Ha! It mislikes me, Pendennis. F.B. was now very great about city affairs, discoursed about stocks and companies with immense learning, and gave me to understand that he had transacted one or two little operations in capital court on his own account, with great present and still larger perspective, advantages to himself.
It is a fact that Mr. Ridley was paid, and that F.B.'s costume, though still eccentric, was comfortable, cleanly, and variegated. He occupied the apartments, once tenanted by the amiable honeymoon. He lived in ease and comfort there. You don't suppose, says he, that the wretched stipend I draw from the Pell-Mell Gazette enables me to maintain this kind of thing? F.B., sir, has a station in the world. F.B. moves among moneyers and city knobs, and eats kebabs with wealthy nabobs. He may marry, sir, and settle in life. We cordially wished every world a prosperity to the brave F.B. Happening to describe him one day in the park, I remarked that his countenance wore an ominous and tragic appearance, which seemed to deepen as he neared me.
I thought he had been toying affably with the nursery maid the moment before, who stood with some of her little chargers, watching the yachts upon the serpentine. How be it, espying my approach, F.B. strode away from the maiden and her innocent companions and advanced to greet his old acquaintance, enveloping his face with shades of funereal gloom. Yon were the children of my good friend, Colonel Huckaback, of the Bombay Marines. Alas, unconscious of their doom, the little infants play. I was watching them at their sports. There is a pleasing young woman in attendance upon the poor children. They were sailing their little boats upon the serpentine, racing and laughing and making merry, and as I looked on, Master Hastings Huckaback's boat went down.
Absent omen, Pendennis. I was moved by the circumstance. F.P. hopes that the child's father's argosy may not meet with shipwreck. "'You mean the little yellow-faced man whom we met at Colonel Newcomb,' said Mr. Pendennis. "'I do, sir,' growled F.B. "'You know that he is a brother director with our colonel in the Bundlekin Bank?' "'Crecious heaven!' I cried in sincere anxiety. "'Nothing has happened, I hope, to the Bundlekin Bank.' "'No,' answers the other, "'nothing has happened. The good ship is safe, sir, as yet.' But she has narrowly escaped a great danger, Pendennis, cries F.B., gripping my arm with great energy. There was a traitor in her crew. She has weathered the storm nobly. Who would have sent her on the rocks, sir?
Who would have scuttled her at midnight? Pray drop your nautical metaphors and tell me what you mean, cries F.B.'s companion. And Bayham continued his narration. Were you in the least conversant with city affairs, he said, or did you deign to visit the spot where merchants mostly congregate? You would have heard the story, which was over the whole city yesterday, and spread dismay from the Threadneedle Street to Leadenhall. The story is that the firm of Hobson Brothers & Newcomb yesterday refused acceptance of £30,000 worth of bills of the Bundlekin Banking Company of India. The news came like a thunderclap upon the London Board of Directors, who had received no notice of the intentions of Hobson Brothers and caused a dreadful panic amongst the shareholders of the concern.
The boardroom was besieged by colonels and captains, widows and orphans. Within an hour after protests of the bills were taken up, and you will see in the City article of The Globe this very evening an announcement that heads forward the House of Baines and Jolly of Job Court will meet engagements of the Bundlekin Banking Company of India. Being provided with ample funds to do honor to every possible liability of that company. But the shares fell, sir, in consequence of the panic. I hope they will rally. I trust and believe they will rally. For our good colonel's sake and that of his friends. For the sake of the innocent children sporting by the serpentine yonder. I had my suspicions when they gave that testimonial, says F.P.
In my experience of life, sir, I always feel rather shy about testimonials, and when a party gets one, somehow look out to hear of his smashing the next month. Absent omen. I will say again, I like not the going down of yonder little yacht. The Globe, sure enough, contained a paragraph that evening announcing the occurrence which Mr. Bayham had described, and the temporary panic which it had occasioned, and containing an advertisement stating that Messrs. Baines and Jolly would henceforth act as agents of the Indian Company. Legal proceedings were presently threatened by the solicitors of the Company, against the banking firm which had caused so much mischief. Mr. Hobson Newcomb was absent abroad when the circumstance took place, and it was known that the protest of the bills was solely attributable to his nephew and partner.
But after the break between the two firms, there was a rupture between Hobson's family and Colonel Newcomb. The exasperated Colonel found that his brother and his nephew were traitors alike, and would have no further dealings with one or the other. Even poor innocent Sam Newcomb, coming up to London from Oxford, where he had been plucked, and offering a hand to Clive, was frowned away by our Colonel, who spoke in terms of great displeasure to his son for taking the least notice of the young traitor. Our Colonel was changed, changed in his heart, changed in his whole demeanour towards the world, and above all towards his son. For whom he had made so many kind sacrifices in his old days. We have said how, ever since Clive's marriage, a tacit strife had been growing up between father and son.
The boy's evident unhappiness was like a reproach to his father. His very silence angered the old man. His want of confidence daily chafed and annoyed him. At the head of a large fortune, which he rightly persisted in spending, he felt angry with himself because he could not enjoy it, angry with his son, who should have helped him in the administration of his new estate, and who was but a listless, useless member of the little confederacy, a living protest against all the schemes of the good man's past life. The catastrophe in the city again brought father and son together somewhat, and the vindictiveness of both was roused by Barnes's treason. Time was when the colonel himself would have viewed his kinsmen more charitably, but fate and circumstance had angered that originally friendly and gentle disposition.
Hate and suspicion had mastered him, And if it cannot be said that his new life had changed him, at least it had brought out faults for which there had hitherto been no occasion, and qualities latent before. Do we know ourselves, or what good or evil circumstance may bring from us? Did Cain know? As he and his younger brother played round their mother's knee, that the little hand which caressed Abel should one day grow larger, and seize a brand to slay him. Thrice fortunate he, to whom circumstances made easy, whom fate visits with gentle trial, and kindly heaven keeps out of temptation. In the stage which the family feud now reached, and which the biographer of the Newcombs is bound to describe, there is one gentle moralist who gives her sentence decidedly against Clive's father, whilst on the other hand, a rough philosopher and friend of mine, whose opinions used to have some weight with me, stoutly declares that they were right.
War and justice are good things, said George Warrington, rattling his clenched fist on the table. I maintain them, and the common sense of the world maintains them, against the preaching of all the honeymans that ever peeled from the pulpit. I have not the least objection in life to a rogue being hung. When a scoundrel is whipped, I am pleased, and say, serve him right. If any gentleman will horsewhip Sir Barnes Newcomb, Baronet, I shall not be shocked, but, on the contrary, go home and order an extra mutton-chop for dinner. Ah, revenge is wrong, Penn, pleads the other counsellor. Let alone that the wisest and best of all judges has condemned it. It blackens the hearts of men. It distorts their views of right.
It sets them to devise evil. It causes them to think unjustly of others. It is not the noblest return for injury, not even the bravest way of meeting it. The greatest courage is to bear persecution, not to answer when you are reviled and when wrong has been done you to forgive. I am sorry for what you call the Colonel's triumph and his enemy's humiliation. Let Barnes be as odious as you will. He ought never to have humiliated Ethel's brother, but he is weak. Other gentlemen as well are weak, Mr. Penn, although you are so much cleverer than women. I have no patience with the Colonel, and I beg you to tell him whether he asks you or not that he has lost my good graces, and that I for one will not huzzah at what his friends and flatterers call his triumphs, and that I don't think in this instance he has acted like the dear Colonel, and the good Colonel, and the good Christian that I once thought him.
We must now tell what the Colonel and Clive had been doing, and what caused two such different opinions respecting their conduct from the two critics just named. The refusal of the London Banking House to accept the bills of the Great Indian Company, of course, affected very much the credit of that company in this country. Sedative announcements were issued by the directors in London. Brilliant accounts of the company's affairs abroad were published. Proof, incontrovertible, was given that the BBC was never in so flourishing a state as at that time when Hobson Brothers had refused its drafts. There could be no question that the company had received a severe wound and was deeply, if not vitally, injured by the conduct of the London firm.
The propensity to sell out became quite epidemic amongst the shareholders. Everybody was anxious to realize Why, out of the thirty names inscribed on poor Mrs. Clive's coconut tree, no less than twenty deserters might be mentioned. Or at least, who would desert could they find an opportunity of doing so with arms and baggage? Wrathfully, the good colonel scratched the names of those faithless ones out of his daughter's visiting book. Haughtily, he met them in the street. To desert the BBC at the Hour of Peril was, in his idea, Like applying for leave of absence on the eve of an action. He would not see that the question was not one of sentiment at all, but of chances and arithmetic. He would not hear with patience of men quitting the ship, as he called it.
They may go, sir, says he, but let them never more be officers of mine. With scorn and indignation he paid off one or two timid friends, who were anxious to fly. And purchased their shares out of his own pocket. But his purse was not long enough for this kind of amusement. What money he had was invested in the company already, and his name further pledged for meeting the engagements from which their late London bankers had withdrawn. Those gentlemen in the meanwhile spoke of their differences with the Indian Bank as quite natural. and laughed at the absurd charges of personal hostility which poor Thomas Newcomb publicly preferred. Here is a hot-headed old Indian dragoon, says Sir Barnes, who knows no more about business than I do about cavalry tactics or Hindustani, who gets into a partnership along with other dragoons and Indian Wiseacres, with some uncommonly wily old native practitioners, And they pay great dividends, and they set up a bank.
Of course, we will do these people's business as long as we are covered. But I have always told their manager that we would run no risks whatever, and close the account the very moment it did not suit us to keep it. And so we parted company six weeks ago, since when there has been a panic in the company, a panic which has been increased by Colonel Newcomb's absurd swagger and folly. He says, I am his enemy. Enemy, indeed. So I am in private life. But what has that to do with business? In business, Begad, there are no friends and no enemies at all. I leave all my sentiment on the other side of Temple Bar. So Thomas Newcomb and Clyde, the son of Thomas, had wrath in their hearts against Barnes, their kinsmen.
And decided to be revenged upon him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed for an opportunity when they might meet him, and overcome him, and put him to shame. When men are in this frame of mind, a certain personage is set always to be at hand to help them and give them occasion for indulging in their pretty little passion. What is sheer hate seems to the individual entertaining the sentiment, so light indignant virtue that he often indulges in the propensity to the full, nay, lauds himself for the exercise of it. I am sure if Thomas Newcomb, in his present desire for retaliation against Barnes, had known the real nature of his sentiments towards that worthy, his conduct would have been different.
And we should have heard of no such act of hostilities as ensued.
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65 65 - Chapter 65: In which Mrs. Clive comes into her Fortune 35:10
The Newcombs by William Macpiece Thackeray. Chapter 65, in which Mrs. Clive comes into her fortune. Speaking of the affairs of BBC, Sir Barnes Newcomb always took care to maintain his candid surprise relating to the proceedings of that company. He set about evil reports against it. He endeavored to do it a wrong. Absurd. If a friend were to ask him, and was quite curious what a number did manage to ask him, whether he thought the company was an advantageous investment, of course he would give an answer. He could not say conscientiously he thought so. Never once had said so, in the time of their connection, which had been formed solely with the view of obliging his amiable uncle. It was a quarrelsome company, a dragoon company, a company of gentlemen accustomed to gunpowder, and fed on Molligatani.
He, forsooth, be hostile to it. There were some companies that required no enemies at all, and would be pretty sure to go to the deuce their own way. Thus, and with his amiable candor, spake Barnes about a commercial speculation, the merits of which he had a right to canvas as well as any other citizen. As for Uncle Hobson, His conduct was characterized by a timidity which one would scarcely have expected from a gentleman of his florid, jolly countenance, active habits, and generally manly demeanor. He kept away from the coconut feast, as we have seen. He protested privily to the Colonel that his private goodwill continued undiminished, but he was deeply grieved at the BBC affair, which took place while he was on the continent.
Confound the continent. My wife would go, and which was entirely without his cognizance. The colonel received his brother's excuses, first with awful bows and ceremony, and finally with laughter. My good Hobson, said he, with the most insufferable kindness, of course you intended to be friendly. Of course the affair was done without your knowledge. We understand that sort of thing. London bankers have no hearts. For these last fifty years past that I have known you and your brother and my amiable nephew, the present commanding officer, has there been anything in your conduct that has led me to suppose you had? And herewith Colonel Newcomb burst out into a laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear.
Worthy Hobson took his hat and walked away. Brushing it round and round and looking very confused. The colonel strode after him downstairs and made him an awful bow at the hall door. Never again did Hobson Lukim set foot in that Tibernian mansion. During the whole of that season of the testimonial, the coconut figured in an extraordinary number of banquets. The colonel's hospitalities were more profuse than ever. And Mrs. Clive's Toilette's more brilliant. Clive, in his confidential conversations with his friends, was very dismal and gloomy. When I asked City News of our well-informed friend, F.B., I am sorry to say, his countenance became funereal. The BBC shares, which had been at an immense premium 12 months since, was now slowly falling, falling.
I wish, said Mr. Sherrick to me, the Colonel would realize even now, like that Mr. Rattray, who has just come out of the ship and brought a hundred thousand pounds with him. Come out of the ship? You little know the Colonel, Mr. Sherrick, if you think he will ever do that. Mr. Rattray, though he had returned to Europe, gave the most cheering accounts of the BBC. It was in the most flourishing state. She is sure to get up again. He had sold out entirely on account of his liver. Must come home, the doctor said so. Some months afterwards, another director, Mr. Hedges, came home. Both of these gentlemen, as we know, entertained the fashionable world, got seats in Parliament, purchased places in the country, and were greatly respected.
Mr. Hedges came out, but his wealthy partner, Mr. McGaspi entered into the BBC. The entry of Mr. McGaspi into the affairs of the company did not seem to produce very great excitement in England. The shares slowly fell. However, there was a prodigious indigo crop. The London manager was in perfect good humor, in spite of this and that. Of defections, of unpleasantries, of unfavorable whispers, and doubtful friends. Thomas Newcomb kept his head high, and his face was always kind and smiling, except when certain family enemies were mentioned, and he frowned like Jove in anger. We have seen how very fond little Rosie was of her mamma, of her uncle, James Binney, and now of her papa. As she affectionately styled Thomas Newcomb.
This affection, I am sure, the two gentlemen returned with all their hearts, and but that they were much too generous and simple-minded to entertain such a feeling. It may be wondered that the two good old boys were not a little jealous of one another. Howbeit it does not appear that they entertained such a feeling. At least it never interrupted the kindly friendship between them. And Clive was regarded in the light of a sun by both of them, and each contented himself with his moiety of the smiling little girl's affection. As long as they were with her, the truth is, little Mrs. Clive was very fond of people, very docile, obedient, easily pleased, brisk, kind, and good-humoured. She charmed her two old friends with little songs, little smiles, little kind offices, little caresses, and having administered Thomas Newcomb's cigar to him in the daintiest, prettiest way, she would trip off to drive with James Binney or sit at his supper, if he was indisposed, and be as gay, neat-handed, watchful, and attentive a child as any old gentleman could desire.
She did not seem to be very sorry to part with Mama, a want of feeling which that lady bitterly deplored in her subsequent conversation with her friends about Mrs. Clive Newcomb. Possibly there were reasons why Rosie should not be very much vexed at quitting Mama, but surely she might have dropped a little tear as she took leave of kind good old James Binney. Not she. The gentleman's voice faltered, but hers did not in the least. She kissed him on the face, all smiles, blushes, and happiness, and tripped into the railway carriage with her husband and father-in-law, leaving the poor old uncle very sad. Our women said, "'I know not why. That little Rosie had no heart at all.' Women are accustomed to give such opinions, respecting the wives of their newly married friends.
I am bound to add, and I do so during Mr. Clive Newcomb's absence from England, otherwise I should not like to venture upon the statement that some men concur with the lady's opinion of Mrs. Clive. For instance, Captains Colby and Holby declare that her treatment of the latter, her encouragement and desertion of him when Clive made his proposals were shameful. At this time, Rosie was in a populary state, a good, obedient little girl. Her duty was to obey the wishes of her dear Mama. Now show her sense of virtue and obedience better than by promptly and cheerfully obeying Mama, and at the orders of that experienced campaigner, giving up Bobby Hoby and going to England to a fine house, To be presented at court, to have all sorts of pleasure with a handsome young husband and a kind father-in-law by her side.
No wonder Rosie was not in a very active state of grief at parting from Uncle James. He strove to consult himself with these considerations when he had returned to the empty house, where she had danced and smiled and warbled. And he looked at the chair she sat in, and at the great mirror which had so often reflected her fresh, pretty face. The great callous mirror, which now only framed upon its shining sheet the turban, and the ringlets, and the plump person, and the resolute smile of the old campaigner. After that parting with her uncle at the Brussels Railway, Rosie never again beheld him. He passed into the campaigner's keeping, from which alone he was rescued by the summons of pallid death.
He met that summons like a philosopher, rejected rather testily all the mortuary consolations which his nephew-in-law, Josie's husband, thought proper to bring to his bedside, and uttered opinions which scandalized that divine. But as he left Mrs. McCraw, only five hundred pounds, thrice that sum to his sister, and the remainder of his property to his beloved niece, Rosa Mackenzie, now Rosa Newcomb. Let us trust that Mr. McCaw, hurt and angry at the ill-favor shown to his wife, his third young wife, his best beloved Josie, at the impatience with which the deceased had always received his, Mr. McCraw's own sermons. Let us hope, I say, that the reverend gentleman was mistaken in his views respecting the present position of Mr.
James Binney's soul, and that heaven may have some regions yet accessible to James, which Mr. McCraw's intellect had not yet explored. Look, gentlemen, does a week pass without the announcement of the discovery of a new comet in the sky, a new star in the heaven, twinkling dimly out of a yet further distance, and only now becoming visible to human ken, though existent for ever and ever? So let us hope divine truths may be shining, and regions of light and love extant. Which Geneva glasses cannot yet perceive, and are beyond the focus of Roman telescopes. I think Clive and the Colonel were more affected by the news of James' death than Rosie. Concerning whose wonderful strength of mind could Thomas Newcomb discourse to my Laura and me.
When, fancying that my friend's wife needed comfort and consolation, Mrs. Pendennis went to visit her. Of course we shall have no more parties this year, sighed Rosie. She looked very pretty in her black dress. Clive, in his hearty way, said a hundred kind-feeling things about the departed friend. Thomas Newcomb's recollections of him and regret were no less tender and sincere. See, says he. How that dear child's sense of duty makes her hide her feelings. Her grief is most deep, but she wears a calm countenance. I see her looking sad in private, but I know sooner speak than she smiles. I think," said Laura, as we came away, that Colonel Newcomb performs all the courtship part in the marriage, and Clive, poor Clive, though he spoke very nobly and generously about Mr.
Binney. Poor Clive, by right of his wife, was now Rich Clive, the little lady having inherited from her kind relative no inconsiderable sum of money. In a very early part of this story, mention has been made of a small sum producing one hundred pounds a year. Which Clive's father had made over to the lad when he was sent from India. This little sum Mr. Clive had settled upon his wife before his marriage, being indeed all he had of his own. For the famous bank shares which his father presented to him, The young man came to London after his marriage, and at the paternal request and order, appeared as a most inefficient director of the BBC. Now Mrs. Newcomb, of her inheritance, possessed not only BBC shares, but monies in bank and shares in East India stock.
So that Clive, in the right of his wife, had a seat in the assembly of the East India shareholders, and a voice in the election of directors of that famous company. I promise you Mrs. Clive was a personage of no little importance. She carried her little head with an aplomb and gravity, which amused some of us. F.B. bent his most respectfully down before her. She sent him on messages, and deigned to ask him to dinner. He once wore cheerful countenance. The clouds which gathered o'er the sun of Newcomb were in the bosom of the ocean buried, Bayham said, by James Benny's brilliant behavior to his niece. Clive was a proprietor of East India stock, and had a vote in electing the directors of that company.
And who so fit to be a director of his affairs as Thomas Newcomb, Esquire, companion of the Bath, and so long a distinguished officer in its army? To hold this position of director, used, up to very late days, to be the natural ambition of many East Indian gentlemen. Colonel Newcomb had often thought of offering himself as a candidate, and now openly placed himself on the lists. and publicly announced his intention. His interest was rather powerful through the Indian Bank, of which he was a director, and many of the shareholders of which were proprietors of the East India Company. To have a director of the BBC, also a member of the Parliament, in Lettern Hall Street would naturally be beneficial to the former institution.
Thomas Newcomb's prospectuses were issued accordingly. and his canvas received with tolerable favor. Within a very short time, another candidate appeared in the field, a retired Palm Bay lawyer of considerable repute and large means, and at the head of this gentleman's committee appeared the names of Hobson Brothers and Newcomb. Very formidable personages at the East India House, with which the Bank of Hobson Brothers have had dealings for half a century past, and where the old lady, who founded or consolidated that family, had had three stars before her own venerable name, which had descended upon her son, Sir Brian, and her grandson, Sir Barnes. War was thus openly declared between Thomas Newcomb and his nephew.
The canvas on both sides was very hot and eager. The number of promises was pretty equal. The election was not to come off yet for a while, but aspirants to the Honorable Office of Director used to announce their wishes years before they could be fulfilled, and returned again and again to the contest before they finally won it. Howbeit, the Colonel's prospects were very fair, and a prodigious indigo crop came in to favor the BBC with the most brilliant report from the board at Calcutta. The shares, still somewhat sluggish, rose again, and Colonel's hopes with them, and the courage of gentlemen at home who had invested their money in the transaction. We were sitting one day round the Colonel's dinner table.
It was not one of the coconut tree days. That emblem was locked up in the butler's pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of state. It was a snug family party in the early part of the year, when scarcely anybody was in town. Only George Warrington and F.B. and Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis, and the ladies having retired, we were having such a talk as we used to enjoy in quiet old days, before marriages and cares and divisions had separated us. F.B. led the conversation. The colonel received his remarks with great gravity and thought him an instructive personage. Others considered him rather as amusing than instructive. And so his eloquence was generally welcome. The canvas for the directorship was talked over.
The improved affairs of a certain great banking company, which shall be nameless, but one which F.B. would take the liberty to state, would, in his opinion, forever unite the mother country to our great Indian possessions. The prosperity of this great company was enthusiastically drunk by Mr. Bayham in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the enemies of that company was characterized in terms of bitter, but not undeserved, satire. F.B. Rather liked to air his oratory, and neglected few opportunities for making speeches after dinners. The colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, perhaps, because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew, not from any mean or selfish motives, did F.B.
speak. He called Colonel Newcomb his friend, his benefactor, kissed the hem of his garment. He wished fervently that he could have been the colonel's son. He expressed repeatedly a desire that someone would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F.B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He covered the Colonel with all his heart. Nor is any gentleman proof altogether against this constant regard and devotion from another. The Colonel used to wag his head wisely and say Mr. Bayham's suggestions were often exceedingly valuable, as indeed the fact was, though his conduct was no more of a piece with his opinions than those of some other folks occasionally are.
What the Colonel ought to do, sir, to help him in the direction, says F.B., is to get into Parliament. The House of Commons would aid him into the Court of Directors, and the Court of Directors would help him in the House of Commons. Most wisely said, says Warrington. The Colonel declined. I have long had the House of Commons in my eye, he said, but not for me. I wanted my boy to go there. It would be a proud day for me if I could see him there. I can't speak, says Clive from his end of the table. I don't understand about parties like F.B. here. I believe I do know a thing or two Mr. Bayham here interposes. And politics do not interest me in the least, Clive sighs out, drawing pictures with his fork on his napkin, and not heeding the other's interruption.
I wish I knew what would interest him, his father whispers to me, who happened to be at his side. He never cares to be out of his painting room, and he doesn't seem to be very happy even in there. I wished to God, Penn, I knew what had come over the boy. I thought I knew, but what was the use of telling? Now there was no remedy. A dissolution is expected every day, continues F.B. The papers are full of it. Ministers cannot go on with this majority. Cannot possibly go on, sir. I have it on the best authority, and men who are anxious about their seats are writing to their constituents, or are subscribing at missionary meetings, or are gone down to lecturing at Athenaeums, and that sort of thing.
Here Warrington burst out into a laughter much louder than the occasion of the speech of F.P. seemed to warrant. And the Colonel, turning round with some dignity, asked the cause of George's amusement. What do you think your darling Sir Barnes Newcomb Newcomb has been doing during the recess, cries Warrington? I had a letter this morning from my liberal and punctual employer, Thomas Potts, Esquire, of the Newcomb Independent, who states, in language scarcely respectful, that Sir Barnes Newcomb Newcomb is trying to come the religious dodge, as Mr. Potts calls it. He professes to be stricken down by grief on account of late family circumstances. Where's Black? And puts on the most piteous aspect, and asks ministers of various denominations to tea with him.
And the last announcement is the most stupendous of all. Stop! I have it in my greatcoat! And, ringing the bell, George orders a servant to bring him a newspaper from his greatcoat pocket. Here it is, actually in print, Warrington continues, and reads to us. Newcomb, Athenium. One. For the benefit of the Newcomb Orphan Children's Home. And two. For the benefit of the Newcomb Soup Association, without distinction of denomination. Sir Barnes Newcomb Newcomb Bart proposes to give two lectures on Friday the 23rd and Friday the 30th instant. Number one. The Poetry of Childhood. Dr. Watts. Mrs. Barbud. Jane Taylor. Number Two. The Poetry of Womanhood and the Affections. Mrs. Herman's L.E.L. Three pence will be charged at the doors, which will go to the use of the above two admirable societies.
Potts wants me to go down and hear him. He has an eye to business. He has had a quarrel with Sir Barnes, and wants me to go down and hear him, and smash him, he kindly says. Let us go down, Clive. You shall draw your cousin as you have drawn his villainous little mug a hundred times before, and I will do the smashing part, and we will have some fun out of the transaction. Besides, Florek will be in the country. Going to Roseberry is a journey worth the taking, I can tell you, and we have old Mrs. Mason to go and see, who sighs after you, Colonel. My wife went to see her, remarks Mr. Pendennis. And? And Miss Newcomb I know, says the Colonel. She is away at Brighton, with her little chargers with sea air.
My wife heard from her today. Oh, indeed, Mrs. Pendennis corresponds with her, says our host, darkling under his eyebrows, and at this moment my neighbor F.B. is kind enough to scrunch my foot under the table with the weight of his heel. As much as to warn me, by an appeal to my own corns, to avoid treading on so delicate a subject in that house. Yes, said I, in spite, perhaps, and consequence of this interruption. My wife does correspond with Miss Ethel, who is a noble creature, and whom those who know her know how to love and admire. She is very much changed since you knew her, Colonel Newcomb. Since the Miss Woltrons and Sir Barnes family, and the differences between you and him, very much changed, and very much improved.
Ask my wife about her, who knows her most intimately, and hears from her constantly." Very likely, very likely, cried the Colonel hurriedly. I hope she is improved with all my heart. I am sure there was room for it. Gentlemen, shall we go up to the ladies and have some coffee? And herewith the colloquy ended, and the party ascended to the drawing room. The party ascended to the drawing room where, no doubt, both the ladies were pleased by the invasion which ended their talk. My wife and the colonel talked apart. And I saw the latter looking gloomy, and the former pleading very eagerly, and using a great deal of action as the little hands are wont to do, when the mistress's heart is very much moved.
I was sure she was pleading Ethel's cause with her uncle. So indeed she was, and Mr. George, too, knew what her thoughts were. Look at her, he said to me. Don't you see what she is doing? She believes in that girl whom you all said Clive took a fancy to before he married his present little placid wife, a nice little simple creature who is worth a dozen Ethels. "'Simple, certainly,' says Mr. P., with a shrug of his shoulders. A simpleton of twenty is better than a rouet of twenty. It is better not to have thought at all. Than to have thought such things as must go through a girl's mind whose life is past in jilting and being jilted, whose eyes, as soon as they are opened, are turned to the main chance, and are taught to leer at Earl, to languish at a marquee, and to grow blind before a commoner.
I don't know much about fashionable life. Heaven help us, you young Bromel. I see the reproach in your face. Why, sir, it absolutely appears to me as if this little hop-o'-my-thumb of a creature has begun to give herself air since her marriage and her carriage. Do you know, I rather thought she patronized me. Are all women spoiled by their contact with the world, and their bloom rubbed off in the market? I know one who seems to me to remain pure. To be sure, I only know her, and this little person, and Mrs. Flanagan, our laundress, and my sisters at home, who don't count. But that Miss Newcomb to whom once you introduced me? Oh, the cockatrice. Only that poison don't affect your wife. The other would kill her.
I hope the Colonel will not believe a word in which Laura says. And my wife's tete-a-tete with our host coming to an end about this time. Mr. Warrington in high spirits goes up to the ladies, recapitulates the news of Barnes's lecture, recites How Doth the Little Busy Bee? and gives a quasi-satirical comment upon that well-known poem, which bewilders Mrs. Clive, until, set on by the laughter of the rest of the audience, she laughs very freely at that odd man, and calls him, you droll satirical creature, you, and says she never was so much amused in her life. Were you Mrs. Vendennis? Meanwhile, Clive, who has been sitting apart, modally biting his nails, not listening to F.B.'s remarks, has broken into a laugh once or twice and gone to a writing-book on which, whilst George is still deserting, Clive is drawing.
At the end of the other speech, F.B. goes up to the draftsman, looks over his shoulder, makes one or two violent efforts as of inward convulsion, And finally explodes in an enormous guffaw. It's capital, by Jove, it's capital. Sir Barnes would never dare to face his constituents with that picture of him hung up in Newcomb. And F.P. holds up the drawing, at which we all laugh except Laura. As for the Colonel, he paces up and down the room, holding the sketch close to his eyes, holding it away from him. Patting it, clapping his son delightedly on the shoulder. Capital! Capital! We'll have the picture printed by Job, sir. Show Vice its own image. And Shane the Viper in his own nest, sir. That's what we will.
Mrs. Pendennis came away with rather a heavy heart from this party. She chose to interest herself about the right or wrong of her friends. And her mind was disturbed by the Colonel's vindictive spirit. On the subsequent day, we had occasion to visit our friend J.J., who was completing the sweetest little picture, number 263 in the exhibition, Portrait of a Lady and Child, and we found that Clive had been with the painter that morning likewise, and that J.J. was acquainted with his scheme. that he did not approve of it, would read in the artist's grave countenance. Nor does Clive approve of it either, cried Ridley, with greater eagerness than he usually displayed, and more openness than he was accustomed to exhibit in judging unfavorably of his friends.
Among them, they have taken him away from his art, Ridley said. They don't understand him when he talks about it. They despise him for pursuing it. Why should I wonder at that? My parents despised it, too, and my father was not a grand gentleman like the Colonel, Mrs. Pendennis. Ah, why did the Colonel ever grow rich? Why had not Clive to work for his bread as half? He would have done something that was worthy of him then. Now his time must be spent in dancing attendance at Ball's Land Operas, and yawning at city boardrooms. They call that business. They think he is idling when he comes here. Poor fellow. As if life was long enough for our art, and the best labor we can give, good enough for it.
He went away groaning this morning, and quite saddened in spirits. The colonel wants to set him up for Parliament, or to set Clive up, but he says he won't. I hope he won't. Do not you, Mrs. Pendennis?" The painter turned as he spoke, and the bright northern light which fell upon the sitter's head was intercepted, and lighted up his own as he addressed us. Out of that bright light looked his pale, thoughtful face, and long locks and eager brown eyes. The palette on his arm was a great shield, painted of many colors. He carried his mall stick, And a sheaf of brushes along with the weapons of his glorious but harmless war. With these he achieves conquests, wherein none are wounded save the envious.
With that he shelters him against how much idleness, ambition, temptations. Occupied over that consoling work, idle thoughts cannot gain mastery over him. Selfish wishes or desires are kept at bay. is truth, and truth is religion, and its study and practice a daily work of pious duty. What are the world's struggles, brawls, successes, to that calm recluse pursuing his calling? See, twinkling in the darkness round his chamber, numberless beautiful trophies of the graceful victories which he has won. Sweet flowers of fancy reared by him. Kind shapes a beauty which he has devised and moulded. The world enters into the artist's studio, and scornfully bids him a price for his genius, or makes dull pretence to admire it.
What know you of his art? You cannot read the alphabet of that sacred book, good old Thomas Newcomb. What can you tell of its glories, joys, secrets, consolations? Between his two best beloved mistresses, poor Clive's luckless father somehow interposes, and with sorrowful, even angry protests. In place of art, the colonel brings him a ledger, and in lieu of first love, shows him Rosie. No wonder that Clive hangs his head. Rebels sometimes. Desponds always. He is positively determined to refuse to stand Finucam, Ridley says. Lar is glad of his refusal, and begins to think of him once more as of the clive of old days.
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66 66 - Chapter 66: In which the Colonel and the Newcome Athenaeum are both lectured 29:29
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 66. In which the Colonel and the Newcomb, Athenium, are both lectured. At breakfast with his family, on the morning after the little entertainment to which we were bidden in the last chapter, Colonel Newcomb was full of the projected invasion of Barnes's territories, and delighted to think that there was an opportunity of, at last, humiliating that rascal. Clive does not think he is a rascal at all, papa, cries Rosie, from behind her tea urn. That is, you said you thought Papa judged him too harshly. You know you did this morning. And from her husband's angry glances, she flies to her father for protection. Those were even fiercer than Clive's.
Revenge flashed from beneath Thomas Newcomb's grizzled eyebrows and glanced in the direction where Clive sat. Then the Colonel's face flushed up. And he cast his eyes down towards his teacup, which he lifted with a trembling hand. The father and son loved each other so that each was afraid of the other. A war between two such men is dreadful. Pretty little pink-faced Rosie, in a sweet little morning cap and ribbons, her pretty little fingers twinkling with the score of rings, sat simpering before her silver tea-urn. Which reflected her pretty little pink baby face. Little artful creature. But did she know of the dreadful wounds which her little words inflicted in the one generous breast and the other?
My boy's heart is gone for me, thinks poor Thomas Newcomb. Our family is insulted. Our enterprise is ruined by that traitor, and my son is not even angry. He does not care for the success of our plans, for the honor of our name even. I make him a position of which any young man in England might be proud, and Clive scarcely deigns to accept it. My wife appeals to my father, thinks poor Clive. It is from him she asks counsel, and not from me. Be it about the ribbon in her cap, She takes her color from his opinion and goes to him for advice, and I have to wait till it is given and conform myself to it. If I differ from the dear old father, I wound him. If I yield up my opinion, as I do always, it is with a bad grace, and I wound him still.
With the best intentions in the world, what a slave's life it is that he has made for me. But how interested you are in your papers, resumes the sprightly Rosie. What can you find in those horrid politics? Both gentlemen are looking at their papers with all their might, and no doubt cannot see one single word which those brilliant and witty leading articles contain. Clive is like you, Rosie, says the Colonel, laying his paper down, and does not care for politics. He only cares for pictures, Papa, says Mrs. Clive. He would not drive with me yesterday in the park, but spent hours in his room while you were toiling in the city, poor Papa. Spent hours painting a horrid beggar man dressed up as a monk.
And this morning he got up quite early, quite early, And has been out ever so long, and only came in for breakfast just now, just before the bell rung. I like a ride before breakfast," says Clive. A ride? I know where you have been, sir. He goes away morning after morning to that little Mr. Ridley's, his chums, papa, and he comes back with his hands all over horrid paint. He did this morning. You know you did, Clive. I did not keep anyone waiting, Rosa says Clive. I like to have two or three hours at my painting when I can spare time. Indeed, the poor fellow used so to run away of summer meetings for Ridley's instructions and gallop home again so as to be in time for the family meal. Yes, cries Rosie.
Tossing up the cap and ribbons, he gets up so early in the morning that at night he falls asleep after dinner. Very pleasant and polite, isn't he, Papa? I am up be times too, my dear, says the Colonel. Many and many a time he must have heard Clive as he left the house. I have a great many letters to write. Affairs of the greatest importance to examine and conduct. Mr. Betts from the city is often with me for hours before I come down to your breakfast table. A man who has the affairs of such a great bank as ours to look to must be up with the lark. We were all early risers in India. You dear kind Fapa, says little Rosie, with unfeigned admiration, and she puts out one of the plump white little jeweled hands.
And pats the lean brown paw of the Colonel which is nearest to her. Is Ridley's picture getting on well, Clive, asked the Colonel, trying to interest himself about Ridley and his picture. Very well. It is beautiful. He has sold it for a great price. They must make him an accommodation next year, replies Clive. A most industrious and meritorious young man. He deserves every honor that may happen to him," says the old soldier. Rosa, my dear, it is time that you should ask Mr. Ridley to dinner, and Mr. Smee, and some of those gentlemen. We will drive this afternoon and see your portrait. Clive does not go to sleep after dinner when Mr. Ridley comes here, cries Rosa. No, I think it is my turn then, says the Colonel, with a glance of kindness.
The anger has disappeared from under his brows. At that moment, the menaced battle is postponed. And yet I know that it must come, says poor Clive, telling me the story as he hangs on my arm, and we pace through the park. The Colonel and I are walking on a mine, and that poor little wife of mine is perpetually flinging little shells to fire it. I sometimes wish it were blown up, and I were done for, Penn. I don't think my widow would break her heart about me. No, I have no right to say that. It's a shame to say that. She tries her very best to please me. Poor little dear. It's the fault of my temper, perhaps, that she can't. But they neither understand me, don't you see? The Colonel can't help thinking I am a degraded being, because I am fond of painting.
Still, dear old boy, he patronizes Ridley, a man of genius, whom those sentries ought to salute by Joe, sir, when he passes. Ridley patronized by an old officer of Indian Dragoons, a little bit of a Rosie, and a fellow who is not fit to lay his palate for him. I want sometimes to ask JJ's pardon. After the Colonel has been talking to him in his confounded, condescending way, uttering some awful bosh about the fine arts, Rosie follows him and trips around J. J.'s studio and pretends to admire and says, How soft, how sweet, recalling some of Mama-in-law's dreadful expressions, which make me shudder when I hear them. If my poor old father had a confidant, into whose arm he could hook his own, and whom he could pester with his family griefs as I do, the dear old boy would have his dreary story to tell, too.
I hate banks, bankers, bundelkund, indigo, cotton, and the whole business. I go to that confounded board, and never hear one syllable that the fellows are talking about. I sit there because he wishes me to sit there. Don't you think he sees that my heart is out of the business? That I would rather be at home in my painting room? We don't understand each other, but we feel each other, as if it were by instinct. Each thinks in his own way, but knows what the other is thinking. We fight mute battles, don't you see, and act thoughts. Though we don't express them, are perceptible to one another, and come out from our eyes, or pass out from us somehow, and meet, and fight, and strike, and wound. Of course Clive's confidant saw how sore and unhappy the poor fellow was, and commiserated his fatal but natural condition.
The little ills of life are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. What with the possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause of one's countrymen, or the loveliest and best beloved woman, of any glory and happiness, or good fortune availed to a gentleman, for instance, who was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of wearing a shoe with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside it. All fame and happiness would disappear and plunge down that shoe. All life would rank around those little nails. I strove, by some philosophic sedatives, as confidants are born to apply, on these occasions, to soothe my poor friend's anger and pain, and I dare say the little nails hurt the patient just as much as before.
Clive pursued his lugubrious talk through the park. and continued it as far as the modest furnished house which we then occupied in the Pimlico region. It so happened that the Colonel and Mrs. Clive also called upon us that day, and found this culprit in Laurie's drawing-room, when they entered it, descending out of that splendid barouche in which we have already shown Mrs. Clive to the public. He has not been here for months before, nor have you, Rosa, nor have you, Colonel. Though we have smothered our indignation and been to dine with you and to call ever so many times, cries Laura. The colonel pleaded his business engagements. Rosa, that little woman of the world, had a thousand calls to make, and who knows how much to do since she came out.
She had been to fetch Papa. At Baze's, and the porter had told the colonel that Mr. Clive and Mr. Pendennis had just left the club together. Clive scarcely ever drives with me, says Rosa. Papa almost always does. Rosie's is such a swell carriage that I feel ashamed, says Clive. I don't understand you young men. "'I don't see why you need be ashamed to go on the course with your wife in her carriage, Clive,' remarks the Colonel. "'The course? The course is at Calcutta, Papa,' cries Rosie. "'We drive in the park.' "'We have a park at Barrickport, too, my dear,' says Papa. "'And he calls his groom Saces. "'He says he was going to send away a Sace for being tipsy. And I did not know in the least what he could mean, Laura.
Mr. Newcomb, you must go and drive on the course with Rosa now, and the Colonel must sit and talk with me, whom he has not been to see for such a long time. Clive presently went off in state by Rosie's side, and then Laura showed Colonel Newcomb his beautiful white cashmere shawl, round a successor of that little person who had first been wrapped in that web. Now a stout young gentleman, whose noise could be clearly heard in the upper regions. I wish you could come down with us, Arthur, upon our lectioneering visit. That of which you were talking last night? Are you bent upon it? Yes, I am determined on it. Laura heard a child's cry at this moment, and left the room with a parting glance at her husband.
who in fact had talked over the matter with Mrs. Pendennis, and agreed with her opinion. As the Colonel had opened the question, I ventured to make a respectful remonstrance against the scheme. Vindictiveness on the part of a man so simple and generous, so fair and noble in all his dealings as Thomas Newcomb, appeared in my mind unworthy of him. Surely his kinsmen had sorrow and humiliation enough already at home. Barnes's further punishment, we thought, might be left to time, to remorse, to the judge of right and wrong. Who better understands than we can do? Our causes and temptations towards evil actions. Who reserves the sentence for his own tribunal? But when angered, the best of us mistake our own motives as we do those of the enemy who inflames us.
What may be private revenge? We take to be indignant virtue and just revolt against wrong. The Colonel would not hear of counsels of moderation, such as I bore him from a sweet Christian pleader. Remorse, he cried out with a laugh. That villain will never feel it until he is tied up and whipped at the cart's tail. Time changed that rogue, unless he is wholesomely punished. He will grow a greater scoundrel every year. I am inclined to think, sir, says he, his honest brows darkling as he looked towards me, that you, too, are spoiled by this wicked world, and these heartless, fashionable, fine people. You wish to live well with the enemy, and with us, too, Pendennis. It can't be. He who is not with us is against us.
I very much fear, sir, that the women The women, you understand, have been talking you over. Do not let us speak any more about this subject, for I don't wish that my son and my son's old friend should have a quarrel. His face became red, his voice quivered with agitation, and he looked with glances which I was pained to behold in those kind old eyes, not because his wrath and suspicion visited myself. But because an impartial witness, nay, a friend to Thomas Newcomb, in that family quarrel, I grieved to think that a generous heart was led astray, and to see a good man do wrong. So with no more thanks for his interference than a man usually gets who meddles in domestic stripes, the present luckless advocate ceased pleading.
To be sure, The Colonel and Clive had other advisers, who did not take the peaceful side. George Warrington was one of these. He was for war a loutrance with Barnes Newcomb. For keeping no terms with such a villain, he found a pleasure in hunting him and whipping him. Barnes ought to be punished, George said, for his poor wife's misfortune. It was Barnes's infernal cruelty. Wickedness, selfishness, which had driven her into misery and wrong. Mr. Warrington went down to Newcomb, and was present at that lecture whereof. Mention has been made in a previous chapter. I am afraid his behavior was very indecorous. He laughed at the pathetic allusions of the respected member for Newcomb. He sneered at the sublime passages.
He wrote an awful critique in the Newcombe Independent two days after, whereof the irony was so subtle that half the readers of the paper mistook his grave scorn for respect and his jives for praise. Clive, his father, and Frederick Bayham, their faithful aide-de-camp, were at Newcombe likewise when Sir Barnes's oration was delivered. At first it was given out at Newcombe that the Colonel visited the place for the purpose of seeing his dear old friend and pensioner, Mrs. Mason, who was now not long to enjoy his bounty, and so old as scarcely to know her benefactor. Only after her sleep, or when the sun warmed her and the old wine with which he supplied her, was the good old woman able to recognize her Colonel.
She mingled father and son together in her mind. A lady who now often came into her thought she was wandering in her talk when the poor old woman spoke of a visit she had had from her boy, and then the attendant told Miss Newcomb that such a visit had actually taken place, and that but yesterday Clive and his father had been in that room and occupied the chair where she sat. The young lady was taken quite ill. and seemed ready to faint almost," Mrs. Mason's servant and spokeswoman told Colonel Newcomb, when that gentleman arrived shortly after Ethel's departure, to see his old nurse. Indeed, he was very sorry. The maid told many stories about Miss Newcomb's goodness and charity, how she was constantly visiting the poor now, how she was, forever, engaged in good works for the young, the sick, and the aged.
She had had a dreadful misfortune in love. She was going to be married to a young Marquis, richer even than Prince D'Amour-Courntour down at Roseberry. But it was all broke off on account of that dreadful affair at the hall. Was she very good to the poor? Did she come often to see her grandfather's old friend? It was no more than she ought to do. Colonel Newcomb said, without, however, thinking fit to tell his informant that he himself met his niece Ethel five minutes before he had entered Mrs. Mason's door. The poor thing was in discourse with Mr. Harris, the surgeon, and talking, as best she might, for no doubt the news which he had just heard had agitated her. Talking about blankets and arrowroot, wine and medicaments for her poor.
When she saw her uncle coming towards her, she tottered a step or two forwards to meet him, held both her hands out, and called his name. But he looked her sternly in the face, took off his hat and bowed, and passed on. He did not think fit to mention the meeting even to his son, Clive. But we may be sure Mr. Harris, the surgeon, spoke of the circumstance that night after the lecture at the club, where a crowd of gentlemen were gathered together, smoking their cigars and enjoying themselves according to their custom, and discussing Sir Barnes Newcomb's performance. According to established usage in such cases, our esteemed representative was received by the Committee of the Newcomb Athenium. assembled in their committee room, and thence marshaled by the chairman and vice-chairman to his rostrum in the lecture hall, round about which the magnates of the institution and the notabilities of the town were rallied on this public occasion.
The baronet came in some state from his own house, arriving at Newcomb in his carriage with four horses, accompanied by my lady, his mother, and Miss Ethel, his beautiful sister, who now was mistress at the hall. His little girl was brought, five years old now. She sat on her aunt's knee and slept during a greater part of the performance. A fine bustle, we may be sure, was made on the introduction of these personages to their reserved seats on the platform, where they sate, encompassed by others, of the great ladies of Newcomb. To whom they, and the lecturer, were especially gracious at this season, was not Parliament about to be dissolved, and were not the folks at Newcomb Park particularly civil at that interesting period?
Sir Barnes Newcomb mounts his pulpit, bows round to the crowded assembly in acknowledgment of their buzz of applause or recognition, passes his lily-white pocket-handkerchief across his thin lips, and dashes off into his lecture about Mrs. Hemmonds and the poetry of the affections. A public man, a commercial man, as we well know, yet his heart is in his home, and his joy in his affections. The presence of this immense assembly here this evening of the industrious capitalists, of the intelligent middle class, of the pride and mainstay of England, the operatives of Newcomb, these Surrounded by their wives and their children, a graceful bow to the bonnets to the right of the platform, so that they too have hearts to feel and homes to cherish, that they too feel the love of women, the innocence of children, the love of song.
Our lecturer then makes a distinguish between man's poetry and woman's poetry, charging considerably in favor of the latter. We show that to appeal to the affections is, after all, the true office of the bard, to decorate the homely threshold, to wreathe flowers around the domestic hearth, the delightful duty of the Christian singer. We glance at Mrs. Heman's biography, and state where she was born, and under what circumstances she must have at first, etc., etc. Is this a correct account of Sir Barnes Newcomb's lecture? I was not present, and did not read the report. Very likely, the above may be a reminiscence of that mock lecture, which Warrington delivered in anticipation of the baronet's ovation.
After he had read for about five minutes, it was remarked the baronet suddenly stopped and became exceedingly confused over his manuscript. Betaking himself to his auxiliary glass of water before he resumed his discourse, which for a long time was languid, low, and disturbed in tone. This period of disturbance, no doubt, must have occurred when Sir Barnes saw before him F. Bayham and Warrington seated in the amphitheatre, and by the side of those fierce, scornful countenance, Clive Newcomb's pale face. Clive Newcomb was not looking at Barnes. His eyes were fixed upon the lady seated not far from the lecturer, upon Ethel, with her arm round her little niece's shoulder, and her thick black ringlets drooping down over her face paler than Clive's own.
Of course she knew that Clive was present. She was aware of him as she entered the hall, saw him at the very first moment, saw nothing but him, I dare say. Though her eyes were shut and her head was turned now towards her mother, and now bent down on the little niece's golden curls, and the past and its dear histories, and youth and its hopes and passions, and tones and looks forever echoing in the heart, and present in the memory, these, no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard as he looked across the great gulf of time. and parting and grief, and beheld the woman he had loved for many years. There she sits, the same but changed, as gone from him as if she were dead, departed indeed into another sphere, and entered into a kind of death.
If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied. Strew round it the flowers of youth. Wash it with tears of passion. Wrap it and envelop it with fond devotion. Break heart, and fling yourself on the bier, and kiss her cold lips and press her hand. It falls back dead on the cold breast again. The beautiful lips have never a blush or a smile. Cover them and lay them in the ground, and so take thy hatband off, good friend, and go to thy business. Do you suppose you are the only man who has had to attend such a funeral? You will find some men smiling and at work the day after. Some come to the grave now and again out of the world, and say a brief prayer, and a God bless her.
With some men, she gone, and her vigorous mansion, her heart to let, her successor, the new occupant, poking in all the drawers and corners and cupboards of the tenement, finds her miniature and some of her dusty old letters hidden away somewhere. And says, was this the face he admired so? Why, allowing even for the painter's flattery? It is quite ordinary, and the eyes certainly do not look straight. Are these the letters you thought so charming? Well, upon my word, I never read anything more commonplace in my life. See, here's a line half blotted out. Oh, I suppose she was crying then. Some of her tears, idle tears. Hark! There is Barnes Newcomb's eloquence still plopping on like water from a cistern.
And our thoughts, where have they wandered? Far away from the lecture, as far away as Clive's almost. And now the fountain ceases to trickle. The mouth from which issued that cool and limpid flux ceases to smile. The figure is seen to bow and retire. A buzz, a hum, a whisper, a scuffle. A meeting of bonnets and wagging of feathers and rustling of silks ensues. Thank you. Delightful, I am sure. I really was quite overcome. Excellent. So much obliged. A rapid phrase is heard amongst the polite on the platform. While down below, yeah, quite enough of that. Mary Jane, cover your throat up. You don't get cold. You don't push me, please, sir. "'Arry, come along and have a pint of ale,' etc., either remarks heard, or perhaps not heard, by Clive Newcomb, as he watches at the private entrance of Athenaeum, where Sir Barnes's carriage is waiting with its flaming lamps and domestics and state liveries.
One of them comes out of the building bearing the little girl in his arms and lays her in the carriage. Then Sir Barnes and Lady Anne and the mayor, then Ethel issues forth, and as she passes under the lamps, behold, Clive's face is pale and sad as her own. Shall we go visit the large gates of Newcomb Park, the moon shining on their carving? Is there any pleasure in walking by miles of gray paling and endless palisades of firs? Oh, you fool! What do you hope to see behind that curtain? Absurd fugitive, whither would you run? Can you burst the tether of fate? And it's not poor dear little Rosie Mackenzie, sitting yonder waiting for you by the stake. Go home, sir, and don't catch cold. So Mr. Clive returns to the King's Arms, and goes up to his bedroom, and he hears Mr.
F. Bayham's deep voice as he passes by the buscoing room. Where the jolly Britons are, as usual, assembled.
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67 67 - Chapter 67: Newcome and Liberty 22:57
when Mr. Tom Potts showed the orator no mercy. The Senate of the King's Arms was hostile to Sir Barnes Newcomb. Many other Newcombites, besides, were savage and inclined to revolt against the representative of their borough. As these patriots met over their cups and over the bumper of friendship uttered the sentiments of freedom, they had often asked of one another, where should a man be found to rid Newcomb of its dictator? Jenner's hearts writhed under the oppression. Patriotic eyes scowled when Barnes Newcomb went by with fine satire. Tom Potts at Brown, the hatter shop, who made the hats for Sir Barnes Newcomb's domestics, proposed to take one of the beavers, a gold-laced one with a cockade and a cord, and set it up in the marketplace and bid all Newcomb come bow to it as to the hat of Gessler.
Don't you think Potts, says F. Baham. Who, of course, was admitted into the King's Arms Club and ornamented that assembly by his presence and discourse. Don't you think the Colonel would make a good William Tell to combat against that Gessler? Ha! Proposal received with acclamation. Eagerly adopted by Charles Tucker Esquire, Attorney at Law. Who would not have the slightest objection to conduct Colonel Newcomb's or any other gentleman's electioneering business in Newcomb or elsewhere. Like those three gentlemen in the plays and pictures of William Tell, who conspire unto the moon, calling upon liberty in resolving to elect Tell as their special champion. Like Arnold, Melchthal, and Werner, Tom Potts, Fred Baham, and Charles Tucker Esquires conspired round a punchbowl and determined that Thomas Newcomb should be requested to free his country.
A deputation from the electors of Newcomb, that is to say, these very gentlemen waited on the colonel in his apartment the very next morning and set before him the state of the borough. Barnes Newcomb's tyranny, under which it groaned, and the yearning of all honest men to be free from that usurpation. Thomas Newcomb received the deputation with great solemnity and politeness, crossed his legs, folded his arms, smoked his cheroot, and listened most decorously. As now Potts, now Tucker, expounded to him, Bayham giving the benefit of his emphatic, hear, hear, to their statements, and explaining dubious phrases to the Colonel in the most affable manner. Whatever the conspirators had to say against Barnes, Colonel Newcomb was only too ready to believe.
He had made up his mind that that criminal ought to be punished and exposed. The lawyer's covert innuendos, who was ready to insinuate any amount of evil against Barnes, which could safely be uttered, were by no means strong enough for Thomas Newcomb. Sharp practice, exceedingly alive to his own interests, reported violence of temper and tenacity of money. Say swindling at once, sir, say falsehood and rapacity. "'Say cruelty and avarice,' cries the Colonel. "'I believe upon my honor and conscience that unfortunate young man to be guilty of every one of those crimes.'" Mr. Bayham remarks to Mr. Potts that our friend the Colonel, when he does utter an opinion, takes care that there should be no mistake about it.
"'And I took care there should be no mistake before I uttered it at all, Bayham,' cries F.B.'s patron. As long as I was in any doubt about this young man, I gave the criminal the benefit of it, as a man who admires our glorious Constitution should do, and kept my own counsel, sir. At least, remarks Mr. Tucker, enough is proven to show that Sir Barnes Newcomb, Newcomb, baronet, is scarce a fit person to represent this great borough in Parliament. Represent Newcomb in Parliament? It is a disgrace to that noble institution, the English House of Commons, that Barnes Newcomb should sit in it, a man whose word you cannot trust, a man stained with every private crime. What right has he to sit in the assembly of the legislators of the land, sir?
cries the colonel, waving his hand as if addressing a chamber of deputies. You are for upholding the House of Commons, inquires the lawyer. Of course, sir, of course. And for increasing the franchise, Colonel Newcomb, I should hope, continues Mr. Tucker. Every man who can read and write ought to have a vote, sir. That is my opinion, cries the Colonel. He's a liberal to the backbone, says Potts to Tucker. To the backbone, responds Tucker to Potts. The Colonel will do for us Potts. We want such a man, Tucker. The Independent has been crying out for such a man for years past. We ought to have a liberal as second representative of this great town. Not a sneaking half-and-half ministerialist like Sir Barnes, a fellow with one leg in the Carlton and the other in Brooks's.
Oh, Mr. Bunce, we can't touch. His place is safe. He's a good man of business. We can't meddle with Mr. Bunce. I know that. Who'll know the feeling of the country pretty well? Pretty well? Better than any man in Newcomb parts, cries Mr. Tucker. But a good man like the Colonel, a good liberal like the Colonel, a man who goes in for household suffrage. Certainly, gentlemen. And the general great liberal principles. We know, of course, such a man would assuredly have a chance against Sir Barnes-Newcomb at the coming election. Could we find such a man, a real friend of the people? I know a friend of the people if ever there was one, F. Bayham interposes. A man of wealth, station, experience. A man who has fought for his country.
A man who is beloved in this place as you are, Colonel Newcomb. For your goodness is known, sir, you are not ashamed of your origin, and there is not a Newcombite old or young, but knows how admirably good you have been to your old friend, Mrs. Mrs. What do you call him? Mrs. Mason from FB. Mrs. Mason. If such a man as you, sir, would consent to put himself in nomination at the next election, every true liberal in this place would rush to support you and crush the oligarchy who rides over the liberties of this borough. Something of this sort, gentlemen, I own to you had crossed my mind, Thomas Newcomb remarked. When I saw that disgrace to my name and the name of my father's birthplace, representing the borough in Parliament, I thought for the credit of the town and the family, the member for Newcombe at least might be an honest man.
I am an old soldier, have passed all my life in India, and am little conversant with affairs at home. Cries of, You are, you are! I hope that my son, Mr. Clive Newcomb, might have been found qualified to contest this borough against his unworthy cousin, and possibly to sit as your representative in Parliament. The wealth I have had the good fortune to amass will descend to him naturally, and at no very distant period of time, for I am nearly seventy years of age, gentlemen. The gentlemen are astonished at this statement. But, resumed the Colonel, my son Clive, as my friend Bayham knows, and to my own regret and mortification, as I don't care to confess to you, declares he has no interest or desire in politics, or for public distinction, prefers his own pursuits, and even these, I fear, do not absorb him.
declines the offer which I made him to present himself in opposition to Sir Barnes Newcomb. It becomes men in a certain station, as I think, to assert that station. And though a few years back I never should have thought of public life at all, and proposed to end my days in quiet as a retired Dragoon Officer, since it has pleased Heaven to increase very greatly my pecuniary means, to place me, as a director and manager of an important banking company, in a station of great public responsibility. I and my brother directors had thought it but right that one of us should sit in Parliament, if possible, and I am not a man to shirk from that or from any other duty. Colonel, will you attend a meeting of electors, which we will call, and say as much to them, and as well?
cries Mr. Potts. Shall I put an announcement in my paper, to the effect that you are ready to come forward? I am prepared to do so, my good sir. And presently this solemn palaver ended. Besides the critical article upon the baronet's lecture, of which Mr. Warrington was the author, there appeared in the leading columns of the ensuing number of Mr. Potts Independent some remarks of a very smashing or hostile nature against the member for Newcomb. This gentleman has shown such talent in the lecturing business, the Independent said, that it is a great pity he should not withdraw himself from politics and cultivate what all Newcomb knows are the arts which he understands best, namely, poetry and the domestic affections.
The performance of our talented representative last night was so pathetic as to bring tears into the eyes of several of our fair friends. We have heard, but never believed until now, that Sir Barnes Newcomb possessed such a genius for making women cry. Last week, we had the talented Miss Noakes from Slocum reading Milton to us. How far superior was the eloquence of Sir Barnes Newcomb Newcomb Bart, even to that of the celebrated jesters. Bets were freely offered in the room last night that Sir Barnes would beat any woman. Bets which were not taken, as we scarcely need say, so well do our citizens appreciate the character of our excellent, our admirable representative. Let the baronet stick to his lectures, and let Newcomb relieve him of his political occupations.
He is not fit for them. He is too sentimental a man for us. The men of Newcomb want a sound, practical person. The liberals of Newcomb have a desire to be represented. When we elected Sir Barnes, he taught liberally enough, and we thought he would do. But you see, the Honorable Baronet is so poetical. We ought to have known that, and not to have believed him. Let us have a straightforward gentleman. If not a man of words, at least let us have a practical man, if not a man of eloquence, one at any rate whose word we can trust, and we can't trust Sir Barnes Newcomb's. We have tried him, and we can't really. Last night when the ladies were crying, we could not for the souls of us help laughing. We hope we know how to conduct ourselves as gentlemen.
We trust we did not interrupt the harmony of the evening, but Sir Barnes Newcomb, prating about children and virtue and affection and poetry, this is really too strong. The independent, faithful to its name, and ever actuated by principles of honor, has been, as our thousands of readers know, disposed to give Sir Barnes Newcomb Newcomb Bart a fair trial. When he came forward after his father's death, we believed in his pledges and promises as a retrencher and reformer, and we stuck by him. Is there any man in Newcomb, except, perhaps, our twaddling old contemporary, the Sentinel, who believes in Sir B. N., any more? We say no. And we now give the readers of the Independent and the electors of this borough fair notice that when the dissolution of Parliament takes place, a good man, a true man, a man of experience, no dangerous radical or brawling tap orator.
Mr. Hicks' friends well understand which we mean, but a gentleman of liberal principles, well-won wealth, and deserves station and honor. We'll ask the electors of Newcomb whether they are or are not discontented with their present unworthy member. The independentful one says, We know good men of your family. We know in it men who will do honor to any name. But you, Sir Barnes Newcomb, Newcomb Bart, we trust no more. In the electioneering matter, which had occasioned my unlucky interference, and that subsequent little coolness upon the good colonel's part, Clive Newcomb had himself shown that the scheme was not to his liking, and then submitted as his custom was, and doing so with a bad grace, as also was to be expected, had got little thanks for his obedience.
Thomas Newcomb was hurt at his son's faint-heartedness, and of course little Rosie was displeased at his hanging back. He set off in his father's train, a silent, unwilling partisan. Thomas Newcomb had the leisure to survey Clive's glum face opposite to him during the whole of their journey, and to chew his mustachios and brood upon his wrath and wrongs. His life had been a sacrifice for that boy. What darling schemes had he not formed in his behalf? And how supercilious did Clive meet his projects? The colonel could not see the harm of which he had himself been the author. Had he not done everything in mortal's power for his son's happiness? And how many young men in England were there with such advantages as this moody, discontented, spoiled boy?
As Clive backed out of the contest, of course his father urged it only the more vehemently. Clive slunk away from committees and canvassing, and lounged about the Newcomb manufactories, whilst his father, with anger and bitterness in his heart, remained at the post of honor, as he called it, bent upon overcoming his enemy and carrying his point against Barnes Newcomb. "'If Paris will not fight, sir,' the colonel said, with a sad look following his son, "'Priam must. Good old Priam, believed his cause to be a perfectly just one, and that duty and his honor called upon him to draw the sword. So there was difference between Thomas Newcomb and Clive, his son. I protested, as with pain and reluctance I have to write that the good old man was in error.' That there was a wrongdoer, and that Atticus was he.
Atticus, be it remembered, thought himself compelled by the very best motives. Thomas Newcomb, the Indian banker, was at war with Barnes, the English banker. The latter had commenced the hostilities by a sudden and cowardly act of treason. There were private wrongs to envenom the contest, but it was the mercantile quarrel on which the colonel chose to set his declaration of war. Barnes's first dastardly blow had occasioned it, and his uncle was determined to carry it through. This, I have said, was also George Warrington's judgment, who, in the ensuing struggle between Sir Barnes and his uncle, Acted as a very warm and efficient partisan of the latter. Kinsmanship, says George. What has old Tom Newcomb ever had from his kinsmen but cowardice and treachery?
If Barnes had held up his finger, the young one might have been happy. If he could have effected it, the Colonel and his bank would have been ruined. I am for war, and for seeing the old boy in Parliament. He knows no more about politics than I do about dancing the polka. But there are five hundred wise-acres in that assembly who know no more than he does, and an honest man taking his seat there, in place of a confounded little rogue, at least makes a change for the better. I dare say Thomas Newcomb Esquire would by no means have concurred in the above estimate of his political knowledge, and thought himself as well informed as another. He is to speak with the greatest gravity about our Constitution as the pride and envy of the world.
Though he surprised you as much, By the latitudinarian reforms, which he was eager to press forward, as by the most singular old Tory opinions which he advocated on other occasions. He was for having every man to vote, every poor man to labor short time and get high wages, every poor curate to be paid double or treble, every bishop to be docked of his salary and dismissed from the House of Lords. But he was a staunch admirer of that assembly, and a supporter of the rights of the Crown. He was for sweeping off taxes from the poor, and as money must be raised to carry on government, he opined that the rich should pay. He uttered all these opinions with the greatest gravity and emphasis, before a large assembly of electors, and others convened in the Newcomb Town Hall.
Amid the roars of applause of the non-electors, and the bewilderment and consternation of Mr. Potts, of the Independent, who had represented the Colonel in his favor as a safe and steady reformer. Of course, the Sentinel showed him up as a most dangerous radical, a sepoy Republican, and so forth, to the wrath and indignation of Colonel Nocombe. He a Republican! He scorned the name. He would die as he had bled many a time for his sovereign. He an enemy of our beloved Church. He esteemed and honored it, and he hated and abhorred the superstitions of Rome. Yells from the Irish in the crowd. He an enemy of the House of Lords. He held it to be the safeguard of the Constitution and the legitimate prize of our most illustrious naval, military, and legal heroes.
Ironical cheers. He repelled to scorn the dastard attacks of the journal which had assailed him. He asked, laying his hands on his heart, If, as a gentleman, an officer bailing Her Majesty's commission, he could be guilty of a desire to subvert her empire and to insult the dignity of her crown? After this second speech at the town hall, it was asserted by a considerable party in Newcomb that old Tom, as the mob familiarly called him, was a Tory, while an equal number averred that he was a radical. Mr. Potts tried to reconcile his statements, a work in which I should think the talented editor of The Independent had no little difficulty. He knows nothing about it, poor Clive said with a sigh. His politics are all sentiment and kindness.
He will have the poor man pay double wages, and does not remember that the employer would be ruined. You have heard him, Penn, talking in this way at his own table. But when he comes out armed, cap a pied, and careers against windmills in public, don't you see that as Don Quixote's son, I had rather the dear, brave old gentleman was at home? So this venient took but little part in the electioneering doings, holding moodily aloof from the meetings, and councils, and public houses where his father's partisans were assembled.
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68 68 - Chapter 68: A Letter and a Reconciliation 18:08
Pendennis Dearest Laura, I have not written to you for many weeks past. There have been some things too trivial, and some too sad to write about. Some things I know I shall write of if I begin, and yet I know that I had best leave, for of what good is looking to the past now? I vex you or myself by reverting to it. Does not every day bring its own duty and task, and are these not enough to occupy one? What a fright you must have had with my little goddaughter! Thank heaven she is well now, and restored to you. You and your husband, I know, do not think it essential, but I do, most essential, and am very grateful that she was taken to church before her illness. Is Mr. Pendennis proceeding with his canvas?
I try and avoid a certain subject, but it will come. You know who is canvassing against us here. My poor uncle has met with very considerable success amongst the lower classes. He makes them rambling speeches at which my brother and his friends laugh, but which the people applaud. I saw him only yesterday. On the balcony of the king's arms, speaking to a great mob, who were cheering vociferously below. I had met him before. He would not even stop and give his ethel of all days his hand. I would have given him, I don't know what, for one kiss, for one kind word. But he passed on and would not answer me. He thinks me what the world thinks me, worldly and heartless. What I was. But at least, dear Laura, you know that I always truly loved him, and do now, although he is our enemy, though he believes and utters the most cruel things against Barnes, though he says that Barnes Newcomb, my father's son, my brother, Laura, is not an honest man.
Hard, selfish, worldly, I own my poor brother-to-be, and pray heaven to amend him. But dishonest, and to be so maligned by the person one loves best in the world. This is a hard trial. I pray a proud heart may be battered by it. And I have seen my cousin, once at a lecture which poor Barnes gave, and who seemed very much disturbed on perceiving Clive, once afterwards at good old Mrs. Mason's, whom I have always continued to visit for Uncle's sake. The poor old woman, whose wits are very nearly gone, held both our hands and asked when we were going to be married, and laughed, poor old thing. I cried out to her that Mr. Clough had a wife at home. A young, dear wife, I said. He gave a dreadful sort of laugh, and turned away into the window.
He looks terribly ill, pale, and oldened. I asked him a great deal about his wife, whom I remember a very pretty, sweet-looking girl indeed, at my Aunt Hobson's, but with a not-agreeable mother as I thought then. He answered me by monosyllables, appeared as though he would speak, and then became silent. I am pained, and yet glad that I saw him, I said, not very distinctly. I dare say, That I hoped the difference between Barnes and Uncle would not extinguish his regard for Mama and me, who have always loved him. When I said loved him, he'd give one of his bitter laughs again. And so he did when I said I hoped his wife was well. You never would tell me much about Mrs. Newcomb, and I fear she does not make my cousin happy.
And yet this marriage was of my Uncle's making. Another of the unfortunate marriages in our family. I am glad that I paused in time before the commission of that sin. I strive my best and to amend my temper, my inexperience, my shortcomings, and try to be the mother of my poor brother's children. But Barnes has never forgiven me my refusal of Lord Farentosh. He is of the world still, Laura. Nor must we deal too harshly with people of his nature who cannot perhaps comprehend a world beyond. I remember in old days when we were traveling on the Rhine. In the happiest days of my whole life, I used to hear Clive and his friend Mr. Ridley talk of art and of nature in a way that I could not understand at first, but came to comprehend better as my cousin taught me.
And since then, I see pictures, landscapes, and flowers with quite different eyes, and beautiful secrets, as it were, of which I had no idea before. The secret of all secrets, the secret of the other life, and the better world beyond ours, may not this be unrevealed to some? I pray for them all, dearest Laura, for those nearest and dearest to me. That the truth may lighten their darkness, and Heaven's great mercy defend them in the perils and dangers of the night. My boy at Sandhurst has done very well indeed, and Egbert, I am happy to say, thinks of taking orders. He has been very moderate at college, not so Alfred, but the guards are a sadly dangerous school for a young man. I have promised to pay his debts.
And he is to exchange into the line. Mama is coming to us at Christmas with Alice. My sister is very pretty indeed, I think, and I am rejoiced she is to marry young Mr. Mumford, who is a tolerable living, and who has been attached to her ever since he was a boy at rugby school. Little Barnes comes on bravely with his Latin, and Mr. Whitestock. A most excellent and valuable person in his place, where there is so much Romanism and descent, speaks highly of him. Little Clara is so like her unhappy mother in a thousand ways and actions that I am shocked often and see my brother starting back and turning his head away, as if suddenly wounded. I have heard the most deplorable accounts of Lord and Lady Highgate.
Oh, dearest friend and sister, save you. I think I scarce know anyone that is happy in the world. I trust you may continue so. You, who impart your goodness and kindness to all who come near you. You, in whose sweet, serene happiness I am thankful to be allowed to repose sometimes. You are the island in the desert, Lar. And the birds sing there. And the fountain flows, and we come and repose by you for a little while. And tomorrow the march begins again, and the toil, and the struggle, and the desert. Goodbye, fountain. Whisper kisses to my dearest little ones from their affectionate Aunt Ethel. A friend of his, a Mr. Warrington, has spoken against us several times with extraordinary ability, as Barnes owns.
Do you know Mr. W.? He wrote a dreadful article in The Independent about the last poor lecture, which was indeed sad, sentimental commonplace, and the critique is terribly comical. I could not help laughing, remembering some passages in it, when Barnes mentioned it, and my brother became so angry. They have put up a dreadful caricature of being in Newcomb, and my brother says he did it, but I hope not. It is very droll, though. He used to make them very funnily. I am glad he has spirits for it. Goodbye again. E.N. He says he did it, cried Mr. Pendennis, laying the letter down. Barnes Newcomb would scarcely caricature himself, my dear. "'He often means—means Clive, I think,' says Mrs. Pendennis in an offhand manner.
"'Oh, he means Clive, does he, Laura?' "'Yes, and you mean Goose, Mr. Pendennis,' that saucy lady replies." It must have been about the very time when this letter was written that a critical conversation occurred between Clive and his father, of which the lad did not inform me until much later days. As was the case, the reader has been more than once begged to believe, with many other portions of this biography. One night, the Colonel, having come home from a round of electioneering visits, not half satisfied with himself, Exceedingly annoyed, much more than he cared to own, with the impudence of some rude fellows at the public houses, who had interrupted his fine speeches with odious hiccups and familiar jeers, was seated brooding over his cheroot by the chimney fire.
Friend F.B., of whose companionship his patron was occasionally tired, finding much better amusement with the jolly Britons in the Boscoian room below. The Colonel, as an electioneer in business, had made his appearance in the club. But that ancient Roman warrior had frightened those simple Britons. His manners were too awful for them. So were Clives, who visited them also under Mr. Potts' introduction. But the two gentlemen, each being full of care and personal annoyance at the time, acted like wet blankets upon the Britons. Whereas F.B. warmed them and cheered them, affably partook of their meals with them, and graciously shared their cups. So the Colonel was alone, listening to the far-off roar of the Britons' choruses by an expiring fire, as they sate by a glass of cold negus and the ashes of his cigar.
I dare say he may have been thinking that his fire was well-nigh out. His cup of the dregs, his pipe little more now than dust and ashes, when Clive, candle in hand, came into their sitting room. As each saw the other's face, it was so very sad and worn and pale that the young man started back, and the elder, with quite the tenderness of old days, cried, God bless me, my boy. How ill you look. Come and warm yourself. Look, the fire's out. Have something, Clivey. For months past, they had not had a really kind word. The tender old voice smote upon Clive, and he burst into sudden tears. They rained upon his father's trembling old brown hand and stooped down and kissed it. You look very ill, too, father, says Clive.
Ill? Not I, cries the father, still keeping the boy's hand under both his own on the mantelpiece. Such a battered old fellow as I am has a right to look the worse for wear. But you, boy, why do you look so pale? I have seen a ghost, Father Clive answered. Thomas, however, looked alarmed and inquisitive as though the boy was wandering in his mind. The ghost of my youth, father. The ghost of my happiness and the best days of my life groaned out the young man. I saw Ethel today. I went to see Sarah Mason, and she was there. I had seen her, but I did not speak of her, said the father. I thought it was best not to mention her to you, my poor boy. And are. Are you fond of her still, Clive? Still. Once means always in these things, father, doesn't it?
Once means today. And yesterday, and forever and ever. Nay, my boy, you mustn't talk to me so, or even to yourself so. You had the dearest little wife at home, a dear little wife and child. You had a son, and have been kind enough to him, God knows. You had a wife, but that doesn't prevent other, other thoughts. Do you know you never spoke twice in your life about my mother? You didn't care for her. I did my duty by her. I denied her nothing. I scarcely ever had a word with her, and I did my best to make her happy, interposed the Colonel. I know, but your heart was with the other. So is mine. It's fatal. It runs in the family, Father. The boy looked so ineffably wretched that the father's heart melted still more.
I did my best, Clive, the colonel cast out. I went to that villain Barnes and offered him to settle every shilling I was worth on you. I did. You didn't know that. I'd killed myself for your sake, Clivey. What's an old fellow worth living for? I can live upon a crust and a cigar. I don't care about a carriage and only go in it to please Rosie. I wanted to give up all for you. But he played me false. That scoundrel cheated us both. He did, and so did Ethel. No, sir. I may have thought so in my rage once, but I know better now. She was the victim and not the agent. Did Madame de Florac play you false when she married her husband? It was her fate, and she underwent it. We all bow to it. We are in the track, and the car passes over us.
You know it does, Father." The colonel was a fatalist. He had often advanced his oriental creed in his simple discourses with his son and Clive's friends. Besides, Clive went on, Ethel does not care for me. She received me today quite coldly, and held her hand out as if we had only parted last year. I suppose she likes that marquee who jilted her. God bless her. How shall we know what wins the hearts of women? She has mine. There was my fate. Praise be to Allah. It is over. But there's that villain who injured you. His isn't over yet, cried the Colonel, clenching his trembling hand. Ah, Father, let us leave him to Allah, too. Suppose Madame de Floric had a brother who insulted you. You know you wouldn't have revenged yourself.
You would have wounded her in striking him. You called out Barnes yourself, boy," cried the father. That was for another cause, and not for my quarrel. And how do you know I intended your fire? By Jove, I was so miserable then that an ounce of lead would have done me little harm. The father saw the son's mind more clearly than he had ever done the other two. They had scarcely ever talked upon that subject, which the colonel found was so deeply fixed in Clive's heart. He thought of his own early days, and how he had suffered, and he held his son before him wracked with the same cruel pangs of enduring grief. And he began to own that he had pressed him too hastily in his marriage. To make an allowance for an unhappiness of which he had in part been the cause.
Mishallah, Clive, my boy, said the old man. What is done is done. Let us break up our camp before this place and not go to war with Barnes, father, says Clive. Let us have peace and forgive him if we can. And retreat before this scoundrel, Clive? What is a victory over such a fellow? One gives a chimney sweep the wall, father. I say again, what is done is done. I have promised to meet him at the Hestings, and I will. I think it is best, and you are right, and you act like a high-minded gentleman, and my dear old boy, not to meddle in the quarrel, though I didn't think so. And the difference gave me a great deal of pain, and so did what Dennis said. And I'm wrong, and thank God I am wrong. And God bless you, my own boy.
The colonel cried out in a burst of emotion, and the two went to their bedrooms together and were happier as they shook hands at the doors of their adjoining chambers that they had been for many a long day and year.
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69 69 - Chapter 69: The Election 36:11
The Election. Having thus given his challenge, reconnoitred the enemy, and pledged himself to do battle at the ensuing election, our colonel took leave of the town of Newcombe, and returned to his banking affairs in London. His departure was that of a great public personage. The gentlemen of the committee followed him obsequiously down to the train. Quick! Balls out Mr. Potts to Mr. Brown, the stationmaster. Quick, Mr. Brown, a carriage for Colonel Newcomb. Half a dozen hats are taken off as he enters into the carriage. F. Bayham and his servant after him, with portfolios, umbrellas, shawls, dispatch boxes. Clive was not there to act as his father's aide to camp. After their conversation together, the young man had returned to Mrs.
Clive and his other duties in life. It has been said that Mr. Pendennis was in the country, engaged in a pursuit exactly similar to that which occupied Colonel Newcomb. The menaced dissolution of Parliament did not take place so soon as we expected. The ministry still hung together. And by consequence, Sir Barnes-Nookum kept the seat in the House of Commons, from which his elder kinsman was eager to oust him. Away from London, and having but few correspondence, save on affairs of business, I heard little of Clive and the Colonel, save an occasional puff of one of Colonel Newcomb's entertainments in the Pell-Mell Gazette, to which journal F. Bayham still condescended to contribute. And a satisfactory announcement in a certain part of that paper that, on such a day, in Hyde Park Gardens, Mrs.
Clive Newcomb had presented her husband with a son. Clive wrote to me presently to inform me of the circumstance, stating at the same time, With moderate gratification on his own part, that the campaigner, Mrs. Newcomb's mama, had upon this second occasion made a second lodgment in her daughter's house and bedchamber, and showed herself affably disposed to forget the little unpleasantries which had clouded over the sunshine of her former visit. Laura, with a smile of some humor, said she thought now would be the time when, if Clive could be spared from his bank, he might pay us that visit at Fair Oaks which had been due so long, and hinted that change of air in a temporary absence from Mrs. Mackenzie might be agreeable to my old friend.
It was, on the contrary, Mr. Pendennis's opinion that his wife artfully chose that period of time when little Rosie was, perforce, kept at home and occupied with her delightful maternal duties, to invite Clive to see us. Mrs. Laura frankly owned that she liked our Clive better without his wife than with her. and never ceased to regret that pretty Rosie had not bestowed her little hand upon Captain Hobie, as she had been very well disposed at one time to do. Against all marriages of interest, this sentimental Laura never failed to utter indignant protests, and Clive's had been a marriage of interest, a marriage made up by the old people, a marriage which the young man had only yielded out of good nature and obedience.
She would apostrophize her unconscious young ones, and inform those innocent babies that they should never be made to marry except for love. Never! An announcement which was received with perfect indifference by little Arthur on his rocking horse, and little Helen smiling and crowing in her mother's lap. So Clive came down to us, Kea worn in appearance, but very pleased and happy, he said, to stay for a while with the friends of his youth. We showed him our modest rural lions. We got him such a sporting company as our quiet neighborhood afforded. We gave him fishing in the brawl. And Laura, in her pony chase, drove him to Baymouth and to Clavering Park in town and visit the famous Cathedral at Jatteras, where she was pleased to recount certain incidents of her husband's youth.
Clive laughed at my wife's stories. He pleased himself in our home. He played with our children, with whom he had become a great favorite. He was happier, he told me with a sigh, than he had been for many a day. His gentle hostess echoed the sigh of the poor young fellow. She was sure that his pleasure was only transitory, and was convinced that many deep cares weighed upon his mind. Ere long, my old-school fellow, made me sundry confessions, which showed that Laura's surmises were correct. About his domestic affairs he did not treat much. The little boy was said to be a very fine little boy. The ladies had taken entire possession of him. I can't stand Mrs. Mackenzie any longer I own, says Clive.
But how resist a wife in such a moment? Rosa was sure she would die, unless her mother came to her. And, of course, we invited Mrs. Mack. This time she is all smiles and politeness with the Colonel. The last quarrel is laid upon me, and insofar I am easy, as the old folks get on pretty well together. To me, considering these things, it was clear that Mr. Clive Newcomb was but a very secondary personage indeed in his father's new fine house which he inhabited, and in which the poor Colonel had hoped they were to live such a happy family. But it was about Clive Newcomb's pecuniary affairs that I felt the most disquiet when he came to explain these to me. The Colonel's capital and that considerable sum, which Mrs.
Clive had inherited from her good old uncle, were all involved in the common stock, of which Colonel Newcomb took the management. The Governor understands business so well, you see, says Clive. is a most remarkable head for accounts. He must have inherited that from my grandfather, you know, who made his own fortune. All the Newcombs are good at accounts, except me, a poor useless devil who knows nothing but to paint a picture, and who can't even do that. He cuts off the head of a thistle as he speaks, bites his tawny mustachios, plunges his hands into his pockets and his soul into reverie. You don't mean to say, asked Mr. Pendennis, that your wife's fortune has not been settled upon herself?
Of course it has been settled upon herself. That is, it is entirely her own. You know the Colonel has managed all the business. He understands it better than we do. Do you say that your wife's money is not vested in the hands of trustees, and for her benefit? My father is one of the trustees. I tell you, he manages the whole thing. What is his property is mine, and ever has been, and I might draw upon him as much as I liked. And you know it's five times as great as my wife's. What is his is ours, and what is ours is his, of course. For instance, the India stock, which poor Uncle James left, that now stands in the Colonel's name. He wants to be a director. He will be at the next election. He must have a certain quantity of India's stock, don't you see?
My dear fellow, is there then no settlement made upon your wife at all? You needn't look so frightened, says Clive. I made a settlement on her. With all my worldly goods, I did her endow 3,333 pounds 6 and 8 pence, which my father sent over from India to my uncle years ago when I came home. I may, well, indeed be aghast at this news, and had yet further intelligence from Clive, which by no means contributed to lessen my anxiety. This worthy old colonel, Who fancied himself to be so clever a man of business, chose to conduct it in utter ignorance and defiance of law. If anything happened to the Bundelkund Bank, it was clear that not only every shilling of his own property, but every farthing bequeathed to Rosa Mackenzie would be lost.
Only his retiring pension, which was luckily considerable, and the hundred pounds a year which Clive had settled on his wife would be saved out of the ruin. And now Clive confided to me his own serious doubts and misgivings regarding the prosperity of the bank itself. He did not know why, but he could not help fancying that things were going wrong. Those partners who had come home, having sold out of the bank and living in England so splendidly, why had they quitted it? The Colonel said it was a proof of the prosperity of the company, that so many gentlemen were enriched who had taken shares in it. But when I asked my father, Clive continued, why he did not himself withdraw, the dear old Colonel's countenance fell.
He told me such things were not to be done every day, and ended, as usual, by saying that I do not understand anything about business. No more I do, that is the truth. I hate the whole concern pen. I hate that great tawdry house in which we live, and those fearfully stupid parties. Oh, how I wish we were back in Fitzroy Square. But who can recall bygones, Arthur, or wrong steps in life? We must make the best of today, and tomorrow must take care of itself. Poor little child, I could not help thinking, as I took it crying in my arms the other day. What has life in store for you, my poor weeping baby? My mother-in-law cried out that I should drop the baby, and that only the Colonel knew how to hold it.
My wife called from her bed. The nurse dashed up and scolded me. And they drove me out of the room amongst them. By Jopin, I laugh when some of my friends congratulate me on my good fortune. I am not quite the father of my own child, nor the husband of my own wife, nor even the master of my own easel. I am managed for, don't you see? Boarded, lodged, and done for. And here is the man they call Happy. Happy, oh. Why had I not your strength of mind, and why did I ever leave my art, my mistress? And herewith the poor lad fell to chopping thistles again, and quitted Fair Oak shortly, leaving his friends there very much disquieted about his prospects, actual and future. The expected dissolution of Parliament came at length.
All the country papers in England teemed with electioneering addresses. And the country was in a flutter with party-colored ribbons. Colonel Thomas Newcomb, pursuant to his promise, offered himself to the independent electors of Newcomb in the liberal journal of the family town, while Sir Barnes Newcomb, Bart, addressed himself to his old and tried friends, and called upon the friends of the Constitution to rally round him in the conservative print. The addresses of our friend were sent to us at Fair Oaks by the Colonel's indefatigable aide-de-camp, Mr. Frederick Bayham. During the period which had elapsed since the Colonel's last canvassing visit and the issuing of the writs now daily expected for the new Parliament, many things of great importance had occurred in Thomas Newcomb's family.
Events which were kept secret from his biographer, who was, at this period also, pretty entirely occupied with his own affairs. These, however, are not the present subject of this history, which has Newcomb for its business, and the parties engaged in the family quarrel there. There were four candidates on the field for the representation of that borough. That old and tried member of Parliament, Mr. Bunce, was considered to be secure, and the baronet's seat was thought to be pretty safe on account of his influence in the place. Nevertheless, Thomas Newcomb's supporters were confident for their champion, and that when the parties came to the poll, the extreme liberals of the borough would divide their votes between him and the fourth candidate, the uncompromising radical Mr.
Barker. In due time, the colonel and his staff arrived at Newcomb and resumed the active canvass which they had commenced some months previously. Clive was not in his father's suite this time. Nor Mr. Warrington, whose engagements took him elsewhere. The lawyer, the editor of The Independent, and F.B. were the colonel's chief men. His headquarters, which F.B. liked very well, were at the hotel where we last saw him, and once issuing with his aide-de-camp at his heels, the colonel went round to canvas personally, according to his promise. Every free and independent elector of the borough. Barnes, too, was canvassing eagerly on his side, and was most affable and active. The two parties would often meet nose-to-nose in the same street, and there retainers exchanged looks of defiance.
With Mr. Potts of the Independent, a big man on his left. With Mr. Frederick, a still bigger man on his right. His own trusty bamboo cane in his hand, before which poor Barnes had shrunk a bashed ear now, Colonel Newcomb had commonly the best of these street encounters, and frowned his nephew, Barnes, and Barnes' staff off the pavement. With the non-electors, the Colonel was a decided favorite. The boys invariably hurrayed him. Whereas they jeered and uttered ironical cries after poor Barnes, asking, who beat his wife, who drove his children to the workhouse, and other unkind personal questions. The man upon whom the libertine Barnes had inflicted so cruel an injury in his early days was now the baronet's bitterest enemy.
He assailed him with curses and threats when they met, and leagued his brother workmen against him. The wretched Sir Barnes owned with contrition that the sins of his youth pursued him. His enemies scoffed at the idea of Barnes's repentance. He was not moved at the grief, the punishment in his own family, the humiliation and remorse which the repentant prodigal piteously pleaded. No man was louder in his cries of mea culpa than Barnes. No man professed a more edifying repentance. He was had in hands to every black coat, established or dissenting. Repentance was to his interest, to be sure, but yet let us hope it was sincere. There is some hypocrisy, of which one does not like even to entertain the thought, especially that awful falsehood which trades with divine truth and takes the name of heaven in vain.
The Roebuck Inn at Newcomb stands in the market-place, directly facing the King's Arms, where, as we know, Colonel Newcomb, in uncompromising toleration, held their headquarters. Immense banners of blue and yellow floated from every window of the King's Arms, and decorated the balcony from which the Colonel and the assistants were in the habit of addressing the multitude. Fiddlers and trumpeters, arrayed in his colors, paraded the town and enlivened it with their melodious strains. Other trumpeters and fiddlers, bearing the true blue cockades and colors of Sir Barnes Newcomb, Bart, would encounter the colonel's musicians, on which occasions of meeting, it is to be feared, small harmony was produced.
They banged each other with their brazen instruments. The warlike drummers thumped each other's heads in lieu of the professional sheepskin. The townboys and street blaggards rejoiced in these combats and exhibited their valet on one side or the other. The colonel had to pay a long bill for broken brass when he settled the little accounts of the election. In aftertimes, F.B. was pleased to describe the circumstances of a contest in which he bore a most distinguished part. It was F.B.'s opinion that his private eloquence brought over many waverers to the Colonel's side and converted numbers of the benighted followers of Sir Barnes Newcomb. Baham's voice was indeed magnificent, and could be heard from the King's Arms balcony above the shout and roar of the multitude, the gongs and bugles of the opposition bands.
He was untiring in his oratory, undaunted in the presence of the crowds below. He was immensely popular, F.B. Whether he laid his hand upon his broad chest, took off his hat and waved it, or pressed his blue and yellow ribbons to his bosom, The crowd shouted, Hurrah! Silence! Bravo! Bayham forever! They would have carried me in triumph, says F. B. If I had but the necessary qualification, I might be member for Newcomb, this day or any other I chose. I am afraid in this conduct of the colonel's election, Mr. Bayham resorted to acts of which his principal certainly would disapprove. And engaged auxiliaries whose alliance was scarcely creditable. Whose was the hand which flung the potato which struck Sir Barnes Newcomb, Bart, on the nose as he was arranging the people from the Roebuck?
How came it that, whenever Sir Barnes and his friends essayed to speak, such an awful yelling and groaning took place in the crowd below, that the words of those feeble orators were inaudible? Who smashed all the front windows of the Roebuck? Colonel Newcomb had not words to express his indignation at proceeding so unfair. When Sir Barnes and staff were hustled in the market-place, and most outrageously shoved, jeered, and jolted, the Colonel from the King's Arms organized a rapid sally, which he himself headed with his bamboo cane, cut out Sir Barnes and his followers from the hands of the mob, And addressed those ruffians in a noble speech, of which Bamboo Cain, Englishman, Shame, Fair Play, were the most emphatic expressions.
The mob cheered old Tom, as they called him. They made way for Sir Barnes, who shrunk pale and shuddering back into his hotel again, who always persisted in saying that that old villain of a dragoon had planned both the assault and the rescue. When the drakes of the people, the scum of the rabble, sir, banded together by the meridons of Sir Barnes Newcomb, attacked us at the King's arms, and smashed ninety-six pounds worth of glass at one volley, besides knocking off the gold unicorn head and the tail of the British lion. It was fine, sir," F. B. said, to see how the Colonel came forward, and the coolness of the old boy in the midst of the action. He stood there in front, sir, with his old hat off, never so much as once bobbing his old head, and I think he spoke rather better under fire than he did when there was no danger.
Between ourselves, he ain't much of a speaker, the old colonel. He hems and haws, and repeats himself a good deal. He hasn't the gift of natural eloquence which some men have, Pendennis. You should have heard my speech, sir. On the Thursday in the town hall, that was something like a speech. Potts was jealous of it, and always reported me most shamefully. In spite of his respectful behavior to the gentlemen in black coats, his soup tickets, and his flannel tickets, his own pathetic lectures, and his sedulous attendance at other folk sermons, poor Barnes could not keep up his credit with the serious interest at Newcomb. and the meeting-houses and their respective pastors and frequenters turned their backs upon him.
The case against him was too flagrant. His enemy, the factory man, worked it with an extraordinary skill, malice, and pertinacity. Not a single man, woman, or child in Newcomb, but was made acquainted with Sir Barnes's early Peccadillo. Rivald ballads were howled through the streets describing his sin. and his deserved punishment. For very shame, the reverend dissenting gentlemen were obliged to refrain from voting for him. Such as ventured, believing in the sincerity of his repentance to give him their voices, were yelled away from the polling places. A very great number who would have been his friends were compelled to bow to decency and public opinion, and supported the Colonel. Hooted away from the hustings and the public places whence the rival candidates addressed the free and independent electors, this wretched and persecuted Sir Barnes invited his friends and supporters to meet him at the Athenian Room.
Scene of his previous eloquent performances, But though this apartment was defended by tickets, the people burst into it, and Nemesis, in the shape of the persevering factory man, appeared before the scared Sir Barnes and his puzzled committee. The man stood up and bearded the pale baronet. He had a good cause, and was in truth a far better master of debate than our banking friend, being a great speaker amongst his brother operatives. by whom political questions are discussed, and the conduct of political men examined, with a ceaseless interest, and with an ardor and eloquence which are often unknown in what is called superior society. This man and his friends, round about him, fiercely silenced the clamor of, Turn him out!
with which his first appearance was assailed by Sir Barnes as hangers-on. He said, in the name of justice, he would speak up. If they were fathers of families and loved their wives and daughters, he dared them to refuse him a hearing. Did they love their wives and their children? It was a shame that they should take such a man as that yonder for their representative of Parliament. But the greatest sensation he made was when, in the middle of his speech, after inveighing against Barnes's cruelty and parental ingratitude, he asked, where were Barnes's children? And actually thrust forward, too, to the amazement of the committee and the ghastly astonishment of the guilty baronet himself. Look at them, says the man.
They were almost in rags. They have to put up with scanty and hard food. Contrast them with his other children, who you see lording in gilt carriages, robed in purple and fine linen, and scattering mud from their wheels over us humble people as we walk the streets. Ignorance and starvation is good enough for these. For those others, nothing can be too fine or too dear. What can a factory girl expect from such a fine, high-bred, white-handed, aristocratic gentleman as Sir Barnes Newcomb, baronet, but to be cajoled and seduced and deserted and left to starve? When she has served my lord's pleasure, her natural fate is to be turned into the street. Let her go, and rot there, and her children beg in the gutter.
That is the most shameful imposture, gasps out Sir Barnes. These children are not, are not. The man interrupted him with a bitter laugh. No, he says, they are not his. That's true enough, friends. It's Tom's Martin's girl and boy, a precious pair of lazy little scamps. But at least he thought they were his children. See how much he knows about them. He hasn't seen his children for years. He would have left them and their mother to starve, and did, but for shame and fear. The old man his father pensioned them, and he hasn't the heart to stop their wages now. Men of Newcomb, will you have this man to represent you in Parliament? And the crowd roared, No! And Barnes and his shamefaced committee slunk out of the place, and no wonder the dissenting clerical gentleman was shy of voting for him.
A brilliant and picturesque diversion in Colonel Newcomb's favor was due to the inventive genius of his faithful aide-de-camp, F.B. On the polling day, as the carriages full of voters came up to the marketplace, there appeared nigh to the booths an open barouche. covered all over with ribbon, and containing Frederick Bayham, Esquire, profusely decorated with the colonel's colors, and a very old woman and her female attendant, who was similarly ornamented. It was good old Mrs. Mason, who was pleased with the drive and the sunshine, though she scarcely understood the meaning of the turmoil, with her maid by her side, delighted to wear such ribbons, and sit in such a post of honor. Rising up in the carriage, F.B.
took off his hat, bade his men of brass be silent, who were accustomed to bray. See the conquering hero come, whenever the colonel, or Mr. Bayham, his brilliant aide-de-camp, made their appearance. Bidding, we say, the musicians and the universe to be silent. F.B. rose, and made the citizens of Newcomb a splendid speech. Good old unconscious Mrs. Mason was the theme of it, and the Colonel's virtues and faithful gratitude in tending her. She was his father's old friend. She was Sir Barnes Newcomb's grandfather's old friend. She had lived for more than forty years at Sir Barnes Newcomb's door. And how often had he been to see her? Did he go every week? No. Every month? No. Every year? No. Never in the whole course of his life had he set foot into her doors.
Loud yells and cries of shame. Never had he done her one single act of kindness, whereas for years and years past, when he was away in India, heroically fighting the battles of his country, when he was distinguishing himself at Assay, and, and, Molagatani, and Serenpatan. In the hottest of the fight and the fiercest of the danger, in the most terrible moment of the conflict, and the crowning glory of the victory, the good, the brave, the kind old Colonel, why should he say Colonel? Why should he not say old Tom at once? Immense roars of applause. Always remembered his dear old nurse and friend. Look at that shawl, boys, which he has caught on. My belief is that Colonel Newcomb took that shawl in single combat, and on horseback, from the Prime Minister of Tiffu Sahib.
It meant cheers and cries of, Bravo, Bam! Look at that brooch the dear old thing wears. He kissed her hand while so apostrophizing her. Tom Newcomb never brags about his military achievements. He is the most modest as well as the bravest in the world. What if I were to tell you that he cut that brooch from the throat of an Indian rajah? He's a man enough to do it. He is, he is, from all parts of the crowd. What, you want to take the horses out, do you? To the crowd, who were removing those quadrupeds, I ain't going to prevent you. I expected as much of you, men of Newcomb. I expected as much of you, for I know you. Sit still, old lady. Don't be frightened, ma'am. They are only going to pull you to the King's arms and show you to the Colonel.
This, indeed, was the direction in which the mob, whether inflamed by spontaneous enthusiasm or excited by cunning agents placed amongst the populace by F.B., I cannot say, now took the Baroche and its three occupants. With a myriad roar and shout, the carriage was dragged up in front of the king's arms, from the balconies of which a most satisfactory account of the pulling was already black-hearted. The extra noise and shouting brought out the colonel, who looked at first with curiosity at the advancing procession, and then, as he caught sight of Sarah Mason, with a blush and a bow of his kind old head, "'Look at him, boys!' cried the enraptured F.B., pointing up to the old man. Look at him, that dear old boy.
Isn't he an old Trump? Which will you have for your member, Barnes, Newcomb, or Old Tom? As might be supposed an immense shout of, Old Tom, arose from the multitude, in the midst of which, blushing and bowing still, the colonel went back to his committee room, and the bands played See the Conquering Hero. Louder than ever. And poor Barnes, in the course of his duty, having to come out upon his balcony at the Roebuck opposite, was saluted with a yell as vociferous as the cheer for the Colonel had been. And old Mrs. Mason asked what the noise was about, and after making several vain efforts in dumb show to the crowd, Barnes slunk back into his hole again, as pale as the turnip which was flung at his head.
And the horses were brought, and Mrs. Mason driven home, and the day of election came to an end. Reasons of personal gratitude, as we have stated already, prevented His Highness the Prince de Montcontour from taking a part in this family contest. His brother in the House of Higg, however, very much to Florek's gratification, Gave their second votes to Colonel Newcomb, carrying with them a very great number of electors. We know that in the present Parliament, Mr. Higg and Mr. Bunce sit for the borough of Newcomb. Having had monetary transactions with Sir Barnes Newcomb, and entered largely into railway speculations with him, the Messrs. Higg had found reason to quarrel with the Baronet, accuse him of sharp practices to the present day.
and have long stories to tell which do not concern us about Sir Barnes's stratagems, grasping, and extortion. They have their following, deserting Sir Barnes, whom they had supported in previous elections, voted for the Colonel, although some of the opinions of that gentleman were rather too extreme for such sober persons. Not exactly knowing what his politics were when he commenced the campus, I can't say to what opinions the poor colonel did not find himself committed by the time when the election was over. The worthy gentleman felt himself not a little humiliated by what he had to say and to unsay, by having to answer questions and submit to familiarities, to shake hands which, to say truth, he did not care for grasping at all.
His habits were aristocratic. His education had been military, the kindest and simplest soul alive. He yet disliked all familiarity, and expected from common people the sort of deference which he had received from his men in the regiment. The contest saddened and mortified him. He felt that he was using wrong means to obtain an end that perhaps was not right. For so his secret conscience must have told him. He was derogating from his own honor and tampering with political opinions, submitting to familiarities, condescending to stand by, whilst his agents solicited vulgar suffrages or uttered claptraps about rechancement and reform. I felt I was wrong, he said to me in after days, though I was too proud to own my error in those times.
And you and your good wife and my boy were right in protesting against that mad election. Indeed, though we little knew what events were speedily to happen, Laura and I felt very little satisfaction when the result of the Newcomb election was made known to us, and we found Sir Barnes Newcomb third and Colonel Thomas Newcomb second upon the poll. Ethel was absent with their children at Brighton. She was glad, she wrote, not to have been at home during the election. Mr. and Mrs. C. were at Brighton, too. Ethel had seen Mrs. C. and her child once or twice. It was a very fine child. My brother came down to us, she wrote, after all was over. He is furious against Monsieur de Montcontour, who, he says, persuaded the Whigs to vote against him and turned the election.
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70 70 - Chapter 70: Chiltern Hundreds 21:49
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Daiquiri Chapter 70 Chiltern Hundreds We shall say no more regarding Thomas Newcomb's political doings. His speech is against Barnes, and the baronet's replies. The nephew was beaten by his stout old uncle. In due time, the Gazette announced that Thomas Newcomb, Esquire, was returned as one of the members of Parliament for the Borough of Newcomb. And after triumphant dinners, speeches, and rejoicings, the member came back to his family in London, and to his affairs in that city. The good Colonel appeared to be, by no means, elated by his victory. He would not allow that he was wrong in engaging in that family war, of which we have just seen the issue, though it may be that his secret remorse on this account in part occasioned his disquiet.
But there were other reasons, which his family not long afterwards came to understand, for the gloom and low spirits which now oppressed the head of their home. It was observed, that is, if simple little Rosie took the trouble to observe, that the entertainments at the Colonel's Mansion were more frequent and splendid even than before. The silver coconut tree was constantly in requisition, and around it were assembled many new guests, who had not formerly been used to sit under those branches. Mr. Sherrick and his wife appeared at those parties. At which the proprietor of Lady Whittlesey's chapel made himself perfectly familiar. Sherrod cut jokes with the master of the house, which the latter received with a very grave acquiescence.
He ordered the servants about, addressing the butler as old corkscrew, and bidding the footmen, whom he loved to call by his Christian name, to look alive. He called the Colonel Newcomb sometimes, and facetiously speculated upon the degree of relationship subsisting between them now that his daughter was married to Clive's uncle, the Colonel's brother-in-law. Though, ideas say, Clive did not much relish receiving news of his aunt. Sherrick was sure to bring such intelligence when it reached him, and announced in due time the birth of a little cousin at Bogglywala. whom the fond parents designed to name Thomas Newcomb Honeyman. A dreadful panic and ghastly terror seized poor Clive, on occasion which he described to me afterwards.
Going out from home one day with his father, he beheld a wine merchant's cart, from which hampers were carried down the area gate into the lower region of Colonel Newcomb's house. Sherrick and Company, Wine Merchant's, Walpole Street, was painted upon the vehicle. "'Good heavens, sir! Do you get your wine from him?' Clive cried out to his father, remembering Honeyman's provisions in early times. The Colonel, looking very gloomy and turning red, said, "'Yes, he bought wine from Sherrick, who had been very good-natured and serviceable. And who, and who you know, is our connection now.'" When informed of the circumstance by Clive, I, too, as I confess, thought the incident alarming. Then Clive, with a laugh, told me of a grand battle which had taken place in consequence of Mrs.
Mackenzie's behavior to the wine merchant's wife. The campaigner had treated this very kind and harmless but vulgar woman with extreme auteur, had talked loud during her singing. The beauty of which, to say the truth, time had considerably impaired, and made contemptuous observations regarding her upon more than one occasion. At length the colonel broke out in great wrath against Mrs. Mackenzie. Battered to respect that lady as one of his guests, and, if she did not like the company which assembled at his house, hinted to her that there were many thousand other houses in London where she could find a lodging. For the sake of her grandchild and her adored child, the campaigner took no notice of his hint, and declined to remove from the quarter which she had occupied ever since she had become a grandmama.
I myself dined once or twice with my old friends under the shadow of the pickle-bearing coconut tree and could not but remark a change of personages in the society assembled. The manager of the city branch of the BBC was always present, an ominous-looking man whose whispers and compliments seemed to make poor Clive at his end of the table very melancholy. With the city manager came the city's manager's friends, whose jokes passed gaily round, and who kept the conversation to themselves. Once I had the happiness to meet Mr. Raptray, who had returned filled with rupees from the Indian bank, who told us many anecdotes of the splendor of Roman law at Kolkata, who complimented the colonel on his fine house and grand dinners with sinister good humor.
Those compliments did not seem to please our poor friend. That familiarity choked him. A brisk little chattering attorney, very intimate with Sherrick, with a wife of dubious gentility, was another constant guest. He enliveled the table by his jokes, and recounted choice stories about the aristocracy, with certain members of whom the little man seemed very familiar. He knew to a shilling how much this lord owed, and how much the creditors allowed to that marquis. He had been concerned with such and such a nobleman, who was now in the queen's bench. He spoke of their lordships affably and without their titles, calling upon Louisa, my dear, his wife, to testify to the day when Vicon Tagrag dined with them, and Earl Bearakers sent them the pheasants.
F.B., as somber and downcast as his hosts now seem to be, informed me demurely that the attorney was a member of one of the most eminent firms in the city, that he had been engaged in procuring the colonel's parliamentary title for him, and in various important matters appertaining to the BBC. But my knowledge of the world and the law was sufficient to make me aware that this gentleman belonged to a well-known firm of money-lending solicitors, and I trembled to see such a person in the home of our good Colonel. Where were the generals and the judges? Where were the fogies and their respectable ladies? Stupid they were, and dulled their company. But better a stalled ox in their society than Mr.
Campion's jokes over Mr. Sherrick's wines. After the little rebuke administered by Colonel Newcomb, Mrs. McKenzie abstained from overt hostilities against any guests of her daughter's father-in-law, and contented herself by assuming grand and princess-like heirs in the company of the new ladies. They flattered her and poor little Rosa intensely. The latter liked their company, no doubt. To a man of the world looking on, who has seen the men and morals of many cities, it was curious, almost pathetic, to watch that poor little innocent creature, fresh and smiling, attired in bright colors and a thousand grougars, simpering in the midst of these darkling people. Practicing her little arts and coquetries, with such a court round about her.
An unconscious little maid, with rich and rare gems sparkling on all her fingers, and bright gold rings as many as belonged to the late old woman of Banbury Cross. Still, she smiled and prattled innocently before these banditti. I thought it was her Lena and the brigands, and Fra Diavolo. Walking away with F.B. from one of these parties of the colonels, and seriously alarmed at what I had observed there, I demanded of Bayham whether my conjectures were not correct, that some misflugged overhung our old friend's house. At first, Bayham denied stoutly or pretended ignorance, but at length, having reached the haunt together, which I had not visited since I was a married man, we entered that place of entertainment, and were greeted by its old landlady and waitress, and accommodated with a quiet parlor.
And here, F.B., after groaning and sighing, After solacing himself with the prodigious quantity of bitter beer, Feely burst out, and with tears in his eyes, made a full and sad confession respecting this unlucky Bundelkund Banking Company. The shares had been going lower and lower, so that there was no sale now for them at all. To meet the liabilities, the directors must have undergone the greatest sacrifices. He did know. He did not like to think what the Colonel's personal losses were. The respectable solicitors of the company had retired long since after having secured payment of a most respectable bill and had given place to the firm of dubious law agents of whom I had that evening seen a partner.
How the retiring partners from India had been allowed to withdraw and to bring fortunes along with them. was a mystery to Mr. Frederick Bam. The great Indian millionaire was, in his, F.B. eyes, a confounded, mahogany-colored heathen humbug. These fine parties, which the colonel was giving, and that fine carriage which was always flaunting about the park, with poor Mrs. Clive and the campaigner, and the nurse and the baby were, in F.B.'s opinion, all decoys and shams. He did not mean to say that the meals were not paid, and that the colonel had to plunder for his horse's corn, but he knew that Sherrick, and the attorney, and the manager, insisted upon the necessity of giving these parties, and keeping up this state and grandeur, and opined that it was at the special instance of these advisers that the colonel had contested the borough for which he was now returned.
"'Do you know how much that contest cost?' asked F.B. The sum, sir, was awful, and we have ever so much of it to pay. I came up twice myself from Newcomb to Campion and Sherrick about it. I betray no secrets. F.B., sir, would die a thousand deaths before he would tell the secrets of his benefactor. But, Pendennis, you understand a thing or two. You know what o'clock it is, and so does yours truly, F.B., who drinks your health. I know the taste of Sherrick's wine well enough. F.B., sir, fears the Greeks and all the gifts they bring. Confound his amontillado. I had rather drink this honest malt and hops all my life than ever see a drop of his abominable sherry. Golden? F.B. believes it is golden.
And a precious deal dearer than gold, too. And herewith, ringing the bell, my friend asked for a second pint of the just-named and cheaper fluid. I have of late had to recount portions of my dear old friend's history which must needs be told, and over which the writer does not like to dwell. If Thomas Newcomb's opulence was unpleasant to describe, and to contrast with the bright goodness and simplicity I remembered in former days, how much more painful is that part of his story to which we are now come perforce, and which the acute reader of novels has no doubt long foreseen? Yes, sir or madam, you are quite right in the opinion which you have held all along regarding that Bundelkund banking company.
in which our Colonel has invested every rupee he possesses. Sulventure rupees, et cetera. I disdain, for the most part, the tricks and surprises of the novelist's art, knowing from the very beginning of our story what was the issue of this bundle banking concern. I have scarce had patience to keep my counsel about it, and whenever I have had occasion to mention the company, have scarcely been able to refrain from breaking out into fierce diatribes against that complicated, enormous, outrageous swindle. It was one of many similar cheats which have been successfully practiced upon the simple folks, civilian and military, who toil and struggle, who fight with sun and enemy, who pass years of long exile and gallant endurance in the service of our empire in India.
Agency houses after agency houses have been established, and have flourished in splendor and magnificence, and have paid fabulous dividends, and have enormously enriched two or three wary speculators, and then have burst in bankruptcy, involving widows, orphans, and countless simple people who trusted their all to the keeping of these unworthy treasurers. The failure of the Bundlekin Bank Which we now have to record, was one only of many similar schemes ending in Rowan. About the time when Thomas Newcomb was chaired as Member of Parliament for the borough of which he bore the name, the great Indian merchant who was at the head of the Bundlekin Banking Company's affairs at Calcutta, suddenly died of cholera at his palace at Barakpur.
He had been giving up late a series of the most splendid banquets with which Indian prince ever entertained a Calcutta society. The greatest and proudest personages of that aristocratic city had attended his feasts. The fairest Calcutta beauties had danced in his halls. Did not poor F.B. transfer from the columns of the Bengal, her Keral? To the Pell-Mell Gazette the most astounding description of those Asiatic nights' entertainments, of which the very grandest was to come off on the night when cholera seized rum and lull in its grip. There was to have been a masquerade outvying all European masquerades in splendor. The two rival queens of the Calcutta society were to have appeared each with her court around her.
Young civilians at the college and young ensigns fresh landed had gone into awful expenses and borrowed money at interest from the BBC and other banking companies in order to appeal with befitting splendor as knights and noblemen of Henrietta Maria's Court. Henrietta Maria, wife of Heaston Hicks, Esq., Sadadwani, Ottawa. Or, as princes and warriors surrounding the palanquin of Lala Rook, the lovely wife of Honorable Cornwallis Bobas, member of council. All these splendors were there. As carriage after carriage drove up from Calcutta, they were met at Roman Law's gate by ghastly weeping servants who announced their master's demise. On the next day, The bank at Calcutta was closed, and the day after, when heavy bills were presented which must be paid, although by this time Roman Law was not only dead but buried, and his widows howling over his grave, it was announced throughout Calcutta that but 800 rupees were left in the treasury of the BBC to meet engagements to the amount of four locks, then immediately due.
And sixty days afterwards, the shutters were closed at No. 175 Lothbury, the London offices of the BBC of India, and £35,000 worth of their bills refused by the agents, Messrs. Baines, Jarley & Co., of Fogg Court. When the accounts of that ghastly bankruptcy arrived from Calcutta, it was found, of course, that the merchant prince, Roman Law, owed the BBC twenty-five lakhs of rupees, the value of which was scarcely even represented by his respectable signature. It was found that one of the auditors of the bank, the generally esteemed Charlie Conder, a capital fellow famous for his good dinners and for playing low-comedy characters at the Cherungi Theatre, was indebted to the bank in ninety thousand pounds.
And also it was discovered that the Revere Baptist Bellman, chief registrar of the Calcutta Tape and Sealing Wax Office, a most valuable and powerful amateur preacher who had converted two natives and whose serious soirees were thronged at Calcutta, had helped himself to 73,000 pounds more, for which he settled in the bankruptcy court before he resumed his duties in his own. In justice to Mr. Bellman, it must be said that he could have had no idea of the catastrophe impending over the BBC. For, only three weeks before that great bank closed its doors, Mr. Bellman, as guardian of the children of his widowed sister, Mrs. Green, had sold the whole of the late Colonel's property out of company's paper and invested it in the bank.
Which gave a high interest, and with bills of which, drawn upon their London correspondence, he had accommodated Mrs. Colonel Green when she took her departure for Europe with her numerous little family on board the Barham Pouter. And now you have the explanation of the title of this chapter, and know wherefore Thomas Newcomb never sat in Parliament. Where are our dear old friends now? Where are Rosie's chariots and horses? Where are her jewels and goo-gaws? Bills are up in the fine new house. Swarms of Hebrew gentlemen, with their hats on, are walking about the drawing-rooms, peering into the bedrooms, weighing and poising the poor old silver coconut tree, eyeing the plate and crystal, thumbing the damask of the curtains, and inspecting ottomans' mirrors and a hundred articles of splendid trumpery.
There is Rosie's boudoir, which her father-in-law loved to ornament. There is Clive's studio with a hundred sketches. There is the Colonel's bare room at the top of the house, with his little iron bedstead and ship's drawers, and a camel trunk or two, which have accompanied him on many an Indian march, and his old regulation sword, and that one with the native officers of his regiment gave him when he bade them farewell. I can fancy the brokers' faces as they look over this camp wardrobe, and that the uniforms will not fetch much in Holywell Street. There is the old one still, and that new one which he ordered and wore when poor little Rosie was presented at court. I had not the heart to examine their plunder, and go amongst those wreckers.
F.B. used to attend the sale regularly. And report its proceedings to us with eyes full of tears. A fellow laughed at me, says F.B., because when I came into the dear old drawing room, I took my hat off. I told him that if he dared say another word, I would knock him down. I think F.B. may be pardoned in this instance. You're emulating the office of auctioneer. Where are you, pretty Rosie and poor little helpless baby? Where are you, dear Clive, gallant young friend of my youth? Ah, it is a sad story, a melancholy page to pen. Let us pass over it quickly. I love not to think of my friend in pain.
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71 71 - Chapter 71: In which Mrs. Clive Newcome's Carriage is ordered 32:30
The Newcomes, by William Makepeace Daquery. Chapter 71, in which Mrs. Clive Newcomb's Carriage is Ordered. All the friends of the Newcomb family, of course, knew the disaster which had befallen the good colonel, and I was aware for my own part that not only his own, but almost the whole of Rosa Newcomb's property was involved in the common ruin. Some proposals of temporary relief were made to our friends for more quarters than one, but were thankfully rejected. And we were led to hope that the Colonel, having still his pension secured to him, which the law could not touch, might live comfortably enough the retirement to which, of course, he would betake himself when the melancholy proceedings consequent on the bankruptcy were brought to an end.
It was shown that he had been egregiously duped in the transaction. That his credulity had cost him and his family a large fortune, that he had given up every penny which belonged to him, that there could not be any sort of stain upon his honest reputation. The judge before whom he appeared spoke with feeling and regard of the unhappy gentleman. The lawyer who examined him respected the grief and fall of that simple old man. Thomas Newcomb took a little room near the court, where his affairs and the affairs of the company were adjudged, lived with a frugality which never was difficult to him, and once when, perchance, I met him in the city, avoided me with a bow and courtesy that was quite humble, though proud and somehow inexpressibly touching to me.
Fred Bam was the only person whom he admitted. Fred always faithfully insisted upon attending him, in and out of court. J.J. came to me immediately after he heard of the disaster, eager to place all his savings at the service of his friends. Laura and I came to London and were urgent with similar offers. Our good friend declined to see any of us. F.B., again, with tears trickling on his rough cheeks and a break in his voice, told me he feared that affairs must be very bad indeed, for the Colonel absolutely denied himself a cheroot to smoke. Laura drove to his lodgings and took him a box, which was held up to him as he came to open the door to my wife's knock by our smiling little boy. He patted the child on his golden head and kissed him.
My wife wished he would have done as much for her, but he would not. Though she owned, she kissed his hand. He drew it across his eyes and thanked her in a very calm and stately manner. But he did not invite her within the threshold of his door, saying simply that such a room was not a fit place to receive a lady. "'As you ought to know very well, Mrs. Smith,' he said to the landlady, who had accompanied my wife up the stairs. "'He will eat scarcely anything,' the woman told us. "'His meals come down untouched. "'His candles are burning all night almost, "'as he sits pouring over his papers.' "'He was bent. "'He who used to walk so uprightly,' Laura said. He seemed to have grown many years older and was, indeed, quite a decrepit old man.
I am glad they have left Clive out of the bankruptcy, the Colonel said to Bayham. It was almost the only time when his voice exhibited any emotion. It was very kind to them to leave out Clive. Poor boy. And I have thanked the lawyers in court. Those gentlemen and the judge himself were very much moved at this act of gratitude. The judge made a very feeling speech to the colonel when he came up for his certificate. He passed very different comments on the conduct of the manager of the bank when that person appeared for examination. He wished that the law had power to deal with those gentlemen who had come home with large fortunes from India. Realized but a few years before the bankruptcy, those gentlemen had known how to take care of themselves very well.
And as for the manager, is not his wife giving elegant balls at her elegant house at Cheltenham at this very day? What weighed most upon the Colonel's mind F.P. imagined, was the thought that he had been the means of inducing many poor friends to impart their money in this luckless speculation. Take J.J.'s money, after he had persuaded old Ridley to place 200 pounds in Indian shares. Good God! He and his family should rather perish than he would touch a farthing of it. Many fierce words were uttered to him by Mrs. McKenzie, for instance, by her angry daughter at Musselberg, Josie's husband, by Mr. Smee, R.A., and two or three Indian officers, friends of his own, who had entered into the speculation on his recommendation.
These rebukes Thomas Newcomb bore with an affecting meekness, as his faithful F.B. described to me, striving with many oaths and much loudness to carry off his own emotion. But what moved the Colonel most of all was a letter which came, at this time, from Honeyman in India, saying that he was doing well, that, of course, he knew of his benefactor's misfortune, And that he sent a remittance which, D.V., should be annual in payment of his debt to the Colonel and his good sister at Brighton. On receipt of this letter, said F.B., the old man was fairly beaten. The letter, with the bill in it, dropped out of his hands. He clasped them together, shaking in every limb, and his head dropped down on his breast as he said, I thank my God Almighty for this, and he sent the check off to Mrs.
Honeyman by the post that night, sir, every shilling of it, and he passed his old arm under mine, and we went out to Tom's coffee house, and he ate some dinner the first time for ever so long, and drank a couple of glasses of port wine, and F.B. stood it, sir, and would stand his heart's blood, that dear old boy. It was on a Monday morning that those melancholy shutters were seen over the offices of the Bundlecund Bank in Lothbury, which were not to come down until the rooms were handed over to some other, and, let us trust, more fortunate speculators. The Indian bills had arrived and been protested in the city on the previous Saturday. The campaigner and Mrs. Rosie had arranged a little party to the theater that evening, and the gallant Captain Goby had agreed to quit the delights of the flag club in order to accompany the ladies.
Neither of them knew what was happening in the city, or could account otherwise than by the common domestic causes, for Clive's gloomy despondency and his father's sad reserve. Clive had not been in the city on this day. He had spent it as usual in his studio, boudet by his wife, and not disturbed by the mess-room realry of the campaigner. They had dined early, in order to be in time for the theater. Kobe entertained them with the latest jokes from the smoking room at the flag. And was, in his turn, amused by the brilliant plans for the season which Rosie and her mama sketched out the entertainments which Mrs. Clive proposed to give. The ball. She was dying for a masked ball. Just such a one as that was described in the Pell-Mell Gazette of last week.
Out of that paper with the droll title, The Bengal Harkaroo. Which the merchant prince, the head of the bank you know in India, had given at Calcutta. We must have a ball, too, says Mrs. McKenzie. Society demands it of you. Of course it does, echoes Captain Kilby, and he bethought him of a brilliant circle of young fellows from the flag, whom he would bring in splendid uniform to dance with the pretty Mrs. Clive Newcomb. After the dinner, They little knew it was to be their last in that fine house. The ladies retired to give their parting kiss to Baby, a parting look to the toilettes, with which they proposed to fascinate the inhabitants of the pit and the public boxes at the Olympic. Gobi made vigorous play with the claret bottle during the brief interval of potation allowed to him.
He, too. Little deeming that he should never drink bumper there again. Clive looking on with the melancholy and silent acquiescence which had, of late, been his part in the household. The carriage was announced. The ladies came down. Pretty capotes on the lovely campaigner. Gobi vowed, looking as young and as handsome as her daughter by Jove. And the ball door was open to admit the two gentlemen and ladies to their carriage, when, as they were about to step in, a handsome cab drove up rapidly, in which was perceived Thomas Newcomb's anxious face. He got out of the vehicle, his own carriage making way for him, the lady still on the steps. Oh, the play! I forgot, said the Colonel. Of course we are going to the play, papa, cries little Rosie, with a gay little tap of her hand.
I think you had better not, Colonel Lucum said gravely. Indeed, my darling child has set her heart upon it, and I would not have her disappointed for the world in her situation, cries the campaigner, tossing up her head. The colonel for reply, bad as coachman drive to the stables and come for further orders. In turning to his daughter's guest, expressed to Captain Gobi his regret that the proposed party could not take place on that evening, as he had matter of very importance to communicate to his family. On hearing these news, and understanding that his further company was not desirable, the captain, a man of great presence of mind, Arrested the handsome cabman, who was about to take his departure, and who blithely, knowing the club and its inmates full well, carried off the jolly captain to finish his evening at the flag.
"'Has it come, Father?' said Clive with a sure prescience, looking in his father's face. The father took and grasped the hand which his son held out. "'Let us go back into the dining room,' he said. They entered it, And he filled himself a glass of wine out of the bottle, still standing amidst the dessert. He bade the butler retire, who was lingering about the room and sideboard, and only wanted to know whether his master would have dinner. That was all. And this gentleman having withdrawn, Colonel Newcomb finished his glass of sherry and broke a biscuit, the campaigner assuming an attitude of surprise and indignation. Whilst Rosie had leisure to remark that Papa looked very ill, and that something must have happened.
The Colonel took both her hands and drew her towards him, and kissed her. Whilst Rosie's Mama, flouncing down on a chair, beat a tattoo upon the tablecloth with her fan. Something has happened, my love, the Colonel said very sadly. You must show all your strength of mind, for a great misfortune. "'Good heavens, Colonel, what is it? Don't frighten my beloved child,' cries the campaigner, rushing towards her darling, and enveloping her in her robust arms. "'What can have happened? Don't agitate this darling child, sir.' And she looked indignantly toward the poor Colonel. "'We have received the very worst of news from Calcutta, a confirmation of the news by the last mail.' Clivey, my boy. It is no news to me.
I have always been expecting it, Father, says Clive, holding down his head. Expecting what? What have you been keeping back from us? And what have you been deceiving us, Colonel Lukum, shrieks the campaigner, and Rosa, crying out, Oh, Mama, Mama, begins to whimper. The chief of the bank in India is dead, the colonel went on. He has left its affairs in worse than disorder. We are, I fear, ruined, Mrs. McKenzie. And the colonel went on to tell how the bank could not open on Monday morning, and its bills to a great amount had already been protested in the city that day. Rosie did not understand half these news, or comprehend the calamity which was to follow. But Mrs. McKenzie, Rustling in great wrath, made a speech, of which the anger gathered as he proceeded, in which he vowed and protested that her money, which the Colonel, she did not know from what motives, had induced her to subscribe, should not be sacrificed, and that have it she would, the bank shut or not, the next Monday morning, that her daughter had a fortune of her own, Which her poor dear brother James should have divided, and would have divided much more fairly, had he not been wrongly influenced.
She would not say by whom, and she commanded Colonel Newcomb upon that instant, if he was, as he always pretended to be, an honorable man, to give an account of her blessed darling's property, and to pay back her own, every sixpence of it. She would not lend it for an hour longer, and to see that her dear blessed child, now sleeping unconsciously upstairs, and to see her brothers and sisters who might follow. For Rosie was a young woman, a poor innocent creature, too young to be married, and never would have been married had she listened to her mamma's advice. She demanded that the baby, and all succeeding babies, should have their rights and should be looked to by their grandmother, if their father's father was so unkind and so wicked and so unnatural as to give their money to rogues and deprive them of their just bread.
Rosie began to cry more loudly than ever during the utterance of Mama's sermon. So loudly. That Clyde peevishly cried out, Hold your tongue! On which the campaigner, clutching her daughter to her breast again, turned on her son-in-law, and abused him as she had abused his father before him, calling out that they were both in a conspiracy to defraud her child and the little darling upstairs of its bread. And she would speak, yes, she would, and no power should prevent her. And her money she would have on Monday, as sure as her poor dear husband, Captain McKenzie, was dead. And she never would have been cheated so, yes, cheated, if he had been alive. At the word cheated, Clive broke out with an execration, the poor colonel with a groan of despair.
The widow's storm continued, and above that howling tempest of words rose Mrs. Clive's piping scream. Who went off into downright hysterics at last, in which she was encouraged by her mother, and in which she gasped out frantic ejaculations regarding baby, dear, darling, ruined baby, and so forth. The sorrow-stricken Colonel had to quell the women's tongues and shrill anger, and her son's wrathful replies, who could not bear the weight of Mrs. McKenzie upon him. And it was not until these three were allayed that Thomas Newcomb was able to continue his sad story, to explain what had happened and what the actual state of the case was, and to oblige the terror-stricken women at length to hear something like reason.
He then had to tell them, to their dismay, that he would inevitably be declared a bankrupt in the ensuing week. That the whole of his property in that house, as elsewhere, would be seized and sold for the creditor's benefit, and that his daughter had best immediately leave a home where she would be certainly subject to humiliation and annoyance. I would have Clive, my boy, take you out of the country and return to me when I have need of him, and shall send for him. The father said fondly in reply, through a rebellious look on his son's face. I would have you quit this house as soon as possible. Why not tonight? The law, bloodhound, may be upon us ere an hour is over, at this moment, for what I know.
At that moment the doorbell was heard to ring, and the women gave a scream of peace, as if the bailiffs were actually coming to take possession. Rosie went off in quite a series of screams, peevishly repressed by her husband and always encouraged by Mama, who called her son-in-law an unfeeling wretch. It must be confessed that Mrs. Clive Newcomb did not exhibit much strength of mind or comfort her husband much in a moment when he needed consolation. From angry rebellion and fierce remonstrance, this pair of women now passed to an extreme terror and desire for instantaneous flight. They would go that moment. They would wrap the blessed child up in its shawls, and nurse should take it anywhere, anywhere, poor neglected thing.
"'My trunks,' cries Mrs. Mackenzie, "'you know are ready packed. I am sure it is not the treatment which I have received.' It is nothing but my duty and my religion, and the protection which I owe to this blessed unprotected, yes, unprotected and robbed and cheated darling child, which have made me stay a single day in this house. I never thought I should have been robbed in it, or my darlings with their fine fortunes flung naked on the world. If my Mac was here, you never had "'Dare to have done this, Colonel Newcomb. No, never. He had his faults, Mackenzie had, but he would never have robbed his own children. Come away, Rosie, my blessed love. Come, let us pack your things, and let us go and hide our heads in sorrow somewhere.
Ah, didn't I tell you to beware of all painters, and that Clarence was a true gentleman, and loved you with all his heart.'" And would never have cheated you out of your money, for which I will have justice as sure as there is justice in England." During this outburst, the Colonel sat utterly scared and silent, supporting his forehead between his hands. When the harem had departed, he turned sadly to his son. Clive did not believe that his father was a cheat and a rogue. No, thank God. The two men embraced with tender casuality an almost happy emotion on one side and the other. Never for one moment could Clive think his dear old father meant wrong, though the speculations were unfortunate in which he had engaged.
Though Clive had not liked them, it was a relief to his mind that they would now come to an end. They should all be happier now, thank God. Those clouds of distrust being removed. Clive felt not one moment's doubt, but that they should be able to meet fortune with a brave face, and that happier, much happier days were in store for him than ever they had known since the period of this confounded prosperity. He is a good end to it, says Clive, with flashing eyes and a flushed face, and he is a good health till tomorrow, Father. And he filled into two glasses the wine still remaining in the flask. Goodbye to our fortune, and bad luck go with her. I puffed the prostitute away. Ciceleris clattis penis.
You remember what we used to say at Greyfriars? Resigno quiche diat et mea vertui, mei involvo, probanqui, pauperism, synodote carri. And he pledged his father, who drank his wine, his hands shaking as he raised the glass to his lips, and his kind voice trembling as he uttered the well-known old-school words, with an emotion that was as sacred as a prayer. Once more, and with hearts full of love, the two men embraced. Clive's voice would tremble now if he told the story, as it did when he spoke it to me in happier times. One calm summer evening, when we sat together and talked of dear old days. Thomas Newcomb explained to his son the plan, which, to his mind, as he came away from the city after the day's misfortunes, he thought it was best to pursue.
The women and the child were clearly best out of the way. And you too, my boy, must be on duty with them until I send for you. "'Which I will do, if your presence can be of the least service to me, or is called for by, by our honor,' said the old man with a drop in his voice. "'You must obey me in this, dear Clive, as you have done in everything, and been a good and dear and obedient son to me. God pardon me for having trusted to my old, simple old brains too much, and not to you, who know so much better.'" You will obey me this once more, my boy. You will promise me this?" And the old man, as he spoke, took Clive's hand in both his, and fondly caressed it. Then, with the shaking hand, he took out of his pocket his old purse with the steel rings, which he had worn for many and many a long year.
Clive remembered it. In his father's face, how it would beam with delight when he used to take that very poor ass out in Clive's boyish days and tiff him just after he left school. Here are some notes and some gold, he said. It is Rosie's, honestly, Clive dear, her half-year's dividend, for which you will give an order, please, to Sherrick. He has been very kind and good, Sherrick. All the servants were providentially paid last week. There are only the outstanding week's bills out. We shall manage to meet those, I dare say. And you will see that Rosie only takes away such clothes for herself and her baby as are actually necessary, won't you, dear? The plain things, you know. None of the fineries.
They may be packed in a patara or two, and you will take them with you. But the pomps and vanities, you know, we will leave behind. The pearls and bracelets and the plate and all that rubbish, and I will make an inventory of them tomorrow when you are gone, and give them up, every rupees worth, sir, every Anna by Jove to the creditors. The darkness had fallen by this time, and the obsequious butler entered to light the dining-room lamps. "'You have been a very good and kind servant to us, Martin,' says the Colonel, making him a low bow. "'I should like to shake you by the hand. We must part company now, and I have no doubt you and your fellow servants will find good places, all of you, as you merit, Martin, as you merit.
Great losses have fallen upon our family. We are ruined, sir. We are ruined.'" The great Bundlecund Banking Company has stopped payment in India, and our branch here must stop on Monday. Thank my friends downstairs for their kindness to me and my family. Martin bowed in silence, with great respect. He and his comrades in the servants' hall had been expecting this catastrophe, quite as long as the colonel himself, who thought he had kept his affairs so profoundly secret. Clive went up into his women's apartments, looking with but little regret, I dare say, round those cheerless nuptial chambers, with all their gaudy fittings, the fine looking-glasses in which poor Rosie's little person had been reflected, the silken curtains under which he had lain by the poor child's side, wakeful and lonely.
Here he found his child's nurse, and his wife and wife's mother. Busily engaged with the multiplicity of boxes, with flounces, feathers, halals, and finery, which they were stowing away in this trunk and that, while the baby lay on its little pink pillow, breathing softly, a little pearly fist placed close to its mouth. The aspect of the tawdry vanity scattered here and there chafed and annoyed the young man. He kicked the robes over with his foot. When Mrs. McKenzie interposed with loud ejaculations, he sternly battered to be silent, and not wake the child. His words were not to be questioned when he spoke in that manner. "'You will take nothing with you, Rosie, but what is strictly necessary, only two or three of your plainest dresses, and what is required for the boy.
What is in this trunk?' Mrs. McKenzie stepped forward and declared, and the nurse vowed upon her honor, and the lady's maid asserted really now upon honor, too, that there was nothing but what was most strictly necessary in that trunk, to which affidavits, when Clive applied to his wife, she gave a rather timid assent. Where are the keys of that trunk? upon Mrs. McKenzie's exclamation of, what nonsense. Clive, putting his foot upon the flimsy oil-covered box, vowed he would kick the lid off unless it was instantly opened. Obeying this grim summons, the fluttering women produced the keys, and the black box was opened before them. The box was found to contain a number of objects which Clive pronounced to be by no means necessary to his wife's and child's existence.
Trinket boxes, and favorite little gimcracks, chains, rings, and pearl necklaces, the tiara poor Rosie had worn in court, the feathers in the gorgeous train which had decorated the little person. All these were found packed away in this one receptacle, and in another box, I am sorry to say, with the silver forks and spoons. The butler wisely judging that the rich and splendid electrotype wear might as well be left behind. All the silver forks, spoons, and ladles, and our poor old friend the coconut tree, which these female robbers would have carried out of the premises. Mr. Clive Newcomb burst out into fierce laughter when he saw the coconut tree. He laughed so loud that Baby woke. And his mother-in-law called him a brute, and the nurse ran to give his accustomed quietness to the little screaming infant.
Rosie's eyes poured forth a torrent of little protests, and she would have cried yet more loudly than the other baby, had not her husband, again fiercely checking her, sworn with a dreadful oath, That unless she told him the whole truth, by heaven she should leave the house with nothing but what covered her. Even the campaigner could not make head against Clive's stern resolution, and the incipient insurrection of the maids and the mistresses was quelled by his spirit. The lady's maid, a flighty creature, received her wages and took her leave. But the nurse could not find it in her heart to quit her little nursing so suddenly. And accompanied Clive's household in the journey upon which those poor folks were bound.
What stolen goods were finally discovered when the family reached foreign parts were found in Mrs. Mackenzie's trunks, not in her daughter's. A silver filigree basket, a few teaspoons, baby's gold coral, and a costly crimson velvet-bound copy of the Honorable Miss Grimstone's church service. To which articles, having thus appropriated them, Mrs. McKenzie, henceforward, laid claim as her own. So when the packing was done, a cab was called to receive the modest trunks of this fugitive family. The coachman was bidden to put his horses to again, and for the last time poor Rosie Newcomb sate in her own carriage. To which the Colonel conducted her with his courtly old bow, kissing the baby as it slept once more, unconscious in its nurse's embrace, and bestowing a very grave and polite parting salute upon the campaigner.
Then Clive and his father entered the cab on which the trunks were born, and they drove to the tower stairs, where the ship lay, which was to convey them out of England. And during that journey, no doubt, they talked over their altered prospects, and I am sure Clive's father blessed his son fondly, and committed him and his family to a good God's gracious keeping, and thought of him with sacred love when they had parted, and Thomas Newcomb had returned to his lonely house to watch and to think of his ruined fortunes, and to pray that he might have courage under them. That he might bear his own fate honorably, and that a gentle one might be dealt to those beloved beings for whom his life had been sacrificed in vain.
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72 72 - Chapter 72: Belisarius 21:42
Belisorius. When the sale of Colonel Newcomb's effects took place, a friend of the family bought in for a few shillings those two swords which had hung, as we have said, in the good man's chamber, and for which no single broker present had the heart to bid. The head of Clive's father, painted by himself, which had always kept its place in the young man's studio, together with a lot of his oil sketchings, easels, and painting apparatus, were purchased by the faithful J.J., who kept them until his friendship returned to London and reclaimed them, and who showed the most generous solicitude in Clive's behalf. J.J. was elected of the Royal Academy this year, and Clive, it was evident, was working hard at the profession which he had always loved, for he sent over three pictures to the Academy.
And I never knew man more mortified than the affectionate J.J., when two of these unlucky pieces were rejected by the Committee for the Year. One pretty little piece called The Stranded Boat got a fair place on the exhibition walls, and you may be sure was loudly praised by a certain critic in the Pell-Mell Gazette. The picture was sold on the first day of the exhibition at the price of twenty-five pounds, which the artist demanded, and when the kind J.J. wrote to inform his friend of his satisfactory circumstance and to say that he held the money at Clive's disposal. The latter replied with many expressions of sincere gratitude, at the same time begging him directly to forward the money, with our old friend Thomas Newcomb's love, to Mrs.
Sarah Mason, at Newcomb. But J.J. never informed his friend that he himself was the purchaser of the picture. No was Clive made acquainted with the fact until sometime afterwards when he found it hanging in Ridley's studio. I have said that we, none of us, were aware at this time with the real state of Colonel Newcomb's finances and hoped that, after giving up every shilling of his property, which was confiscated to the creditors of the bank, he had still, from his retiring pension and military allowances, at least enough reputably to maintain him. On one occasion, having business in the city, I there met Mr. Sherrick. Affairs have been going ill with that gentleman. He had been let in terribly, he informed me, by Lord Levant's insolvency, having had large money transactions with his lordship.
There's none of them so good as old Newcomb, Mr. Sherrick said with a sigh. That was a good one. That was an honest man if I ever saw one. With no more guile and no more idea of business than a baby. Why didn't he take my advice, poor old Cove? He might be comfortable now. Why did he sell away that annuity, Penn Dennis? I got it done for him when nobody else, perhaps, could have got it done for him. For the security ain't worth two pence if Newcomb wasn't an honest man. But I know he is, and would rather starve and eat the nails off his fingers than not keep his word, the old Trump. And when he came to me, a good two months before the smash of the bank, which I knew it, sir, and saw that it must come, When he came and raised three thousand pounds to meet them de-electioneering bills, having to pay lawyers, commission, premium, life insurance, you know the whole game, Mr.
P. I as good as went down on my knees to him, I did, at the North and South American Coffee House, where he was to meet the party about the money and said, Colonel, don't raise it. I tell you. Let it stand over. Let it go in along with the bankruptcy that's a-coming. But he wouldn't. He went on like an old Bengal tiger, roaring about his honor. He paid the bills every shilling. Infernal long bills they were. And it's my belief that, at this minute, he ain't got fifty pounds a year of his own to spend. I would send him back my commission. I would, by Jove. Only times is so bad, and that rascal LeVant let me in. It went to my heart to take the old cock's money. But it's gone, that and ever so much more.
And Letty Whittlesey's chapel, too, Mr. P. Hang that young LeVant. Squeezing my hand after the speech, Sherrick ran across the street after some other capitalist, who was entering the Diddle X insurance office, and left me very much grieved and dismayed, and finding that my worst fears in regard to Norm Snookum were confirmed. Should we confer with his wealthy family respecting the colonel's impoverished condition? Was his brother Hobbs and Snookum aware of it? As for Sir Barnes, the quarrel between him and his uncle had been too fierce to admit of hopes of relief from that quarter. Barnes had been put to very heavy expenses in the first contested election, had come forward again immediately on his uncle's resignation, but again had been beaten by a more liberal candidate, his quantum former friend, Mr.
Higg. Who formally declared against Sir Barnes, and who drove him finally out of the representation of Newcomb. From this gentleman, it was vain, of course, for Colonel Newcomb's friends to expect relief. How to aid him? He was proud, past work, nearly 70 years old. Oh, why did those cruel academicians refuse Clive's pictures, cries Laura. I have no patience with them. Had the pictures been exhibited, I know who might have bought them. But that is vain now. He would suspect it once and send her money away. Oh, Penn, why, why didn't he come when I wrote that letter to Brussels? From persons so poorly endowed with money as ourselves, any help, but of the mere temporary nature, was out of the question.
We knew our friends too well not to know that they were disdained to receive it. It was agreed between me and Laura that at any rate I should go and see Clive. Our friends indeed were a very short distance from us, and having exiled themselves from England, could yet see its coast from their windows upon any clear day. Boulogne was their present abiding place, refuge of how many thousands of other unfortunate Britons. And to this friendly port I partook myself speedily, having the address of Colonel Newcomb. His quarters were in a quiet, grass-grown old street of the old town. None of the family were at home when I called. There was indeed no servant to answer the bell. But the good-natured French domestic of a neighboring lodger told me that the young monsieur went out every day to make his designs, and that I should probably find the elder gentleman upon the rampart, where he was in the custom of going every day.
I strolled along by those pretty old walks and bastions, under the pleasant trees which shadow them, and the gray old gabled houses from which you look down upon the gay new city. And the busy port, and the piers stretching into the shining sea, dotted with a hundred white sails of black-smoking steamers, and bounded by the friendly lines of the bright English shore. There are few prospects more charming than the familiar view from those old French walls, few places where young children may play, and ruminating old age repose more pleasantly than on those peaceful rampart gardens. I found our dear old friend seated on one of the benches, a newspaper on his knees, and by his side a red-cheeked little French lass, upon whose lap Thomas Newcomb, the younger, lay sleeping.
The colonel's face flushed up when he saw me. As he advanced a step or two towards me, I could see that he trembled in his walk. His hair had grown almost quite white. He looked now to be more than his age. He whose carriage last year had been so erect, whose figure had been so straight and manly. I was very much moved at meeting him, and at seeing the sad traces which pain and grief had left in the countenance of the dear old man. "'So you have come to see me, my good young friend,' cried the Colonel, with a trembling voice. "'It is very, very kind of you. Is not this a pretty drawing-room to receive our friends in?' We have not many of them now. Boy and I come and sit here for hours every day.
Hasn't he grown a fine boy? He can say several words now, sir, and can walk surprisingly well. Soon he will be able to walk with his grandfather, and then Marie will not have the trouble to wait upon either of us. He repeated this sentiment in his pretty old French, and turning with a bow to Marie. The girl said Monsieur knew very well that she did not desire better than to come out with baby, that it was better than staying at home, pardieu. And the clock striking at this moment, she rose up with her child, crying out that it was time to return a Madame with scald. Mrs. Mackenzie has a rather short temper, the colonel said, with a gentle smile. Poor thing. She has had a great deal to bear in consequence, Ben, of my imprudence.
I am glad you never took shares in our bank. I should not be so glad to see you as I am now, if I had brought losses upon you, as I have upon so many of my friends. I, for my part, trembled to hear the good old man was under the domination of the campaigner. Bayham sends me the paper regularly. He is a very kind, faithful creature. How glad I am that he has got a snug berth in the city. His company really prospers, I am happy to think, unlike some companies you know of, Penn. I have read your two speeches, sir, and Clive and I like them very much. The poor boy works all day at his pictures. You know he has sold one at the exhibition, which has given us a great deal of heart, and he has completed two or three more.
And I am sitting to him now for, what do you think, sir, for Belisarius? Will you give Belisarius and the Obelus kind word? My dear, dear old friend, I said in great emotion, if you will do me the kindness to take my Obelus or to use my services in any way, you will give me more pleasure than ever I had from your generous bounties in old days. Look, sir, I wear the watch which you gave me when you went to India. Did you not tell me then to look over Clive and serve him if I could? Can't I serve him now? And I went on further in this strain, as of her rating with great warmth and truth, that my wife's affection and my own were most sincere for both of them, and that our pride would be to be able to help such dear friends.
The Colonel said I had a good heart, and my wife had, though he did not finish this sentence, but I could interpret it without need of its completion. My wife and the two ladies of Colonel Leukum's family never could be friends. However much my poor Laura tried to be intimate with these women. Her very efforts at intimacy caused a frigidity, an auteur which Laura could not overcome. Little Rosie and her mother set us down as two aristocratic personages. Not for our parts, were we very much disturbed at his opinion of the campaigner and Little Rosie. I talked with the Colonel for half an hour or more about his affairs, which indeed were very gloomy, and Clive's prospects, of which he strove to present as cheering of view as possible.
He was obliged to confirm the news which Sherrick had given me. And to own, in fact, that all his pension was swallowed up by a payment of interest and life insurance for sums which he had been compelled to borrow. How could he do otherwise than meet his engagements? Thank God he had caused full approval for what he had done and communicated the circumstance to his son almost immediately after it took place. And that was a comfort to him, an immense comfort. For the women are very angry, said the poor Colonel. You see, they do not understand the laws of honor, at least as we understand them. And perhaps I was wrong in hiding the truth, as I certainly did for Mrs. McKenzie. But I acted for the best.
I hoped against hope that some chance might turn in our favor. God knows I had a hard task enough in wearing a cheerful face for months. And in following my little Rosa, about to her parties and balls. But poor Mrs. McKenzie has a right to be angry. Only I wish my little girl did not side with her mother so entirely, for the loss of her affection gives me great pain. So it was as I suspected. The campaigner ruled over this family, and added to all their distresses by her intolerable presence and tyranny. Why, sir, I ventured to ask, if, as I gather from you, and I remember, I added with a laugh, certain battles royale which Clive described to me in old days, if you and the campaign, Mrs. McKenzie, do not agree, why should she continue to live with you, when you would all be so much happier apart?
She has a right to live in the house, says the Colonel. It is I who have no right in it. I am a poor old pensioner, don't you see, subsisting on Rosie's bounty? We live on the hundred a year, secured to her at her marriage, and Mrs. McKenzie has her 40 pounds of pension, which she adds to the common stock. It is I who have made away with every shilling of Rosie's 17,000 pounds. God help me, and with 1,500 pounds of her mother's. They put their little means together, and they keep us, me and Clive. What can we do for a living? Great God, what can we do? Why, I am so useless that even when my poor boy earned 25 pounds for his picture, I felt we were bound to send it to Sarah Mason. And you may fancy when this came to Mrs.
McKenzie's ears, what a life my boy and I led. I have never spoken of these things to any mortal soul. I even don't speak of them with Clive. But seeing your kind and honest face has made me talk. You must pardon my gratulity. I am growing old, Arthur. This poverty and these quarrels have beaten my spirit down. There, I shall talk on this subject no more. I wish, sir, I could ask you to dine with us, but, and here he smiled, we must get the leave of the higher powers. I was determined, in spite of prohibitions and campaigners, to see my old friend Clive, and insisted on walking back with the Colonel to his lodgings, at the door of which we met Mrs. Mackenzie and her daughter. Rosa blushed up a little, looked at her mama, and then greeted me with a hand and a curtsy.
The campaigner also saluted me in a majestic but amicable manner. Made no objection even to my entering her apartments and seeing the condition to which they were reduced. This phrase was uttered with particular emphasis and a significant look towards the Colonel, who bowed his meek head and preceded me into the lodgings, which were in truth very homely, pretty, and comfortable. The campaigner was an excellent manager, restless, bothering, brushing perpetually. Such fugitive gimcracks as they had brought away with them decorated the little saloon. Mrs. McKenzie, who took the entire command, even pressed me to dine and partake, if so fashionable a gentleman would condescend to partake, of a humble exile's fair.
No fear was perhaps very pleasant to me in company with that woman, but I wanted to see my dear old Clive. and gladly accepted his voluble mother-in-law's not disinterested hospitality. She beckoned the Colonel aside, whispered to him, putting something into his hand, on which he took his hat and went away. Then Rosie was dismissed upon some other pretext, and I had the felicity to be left alone with Mrs. Captain McKenzie. She instantly improved the occasion, and with great eagerness and volubility, entered into her statement of the present affairs and position of this unfortunate family. She described Darling Rosie's delicate state, poor thing, nursed with tenderness and in the lap of luxury, brought up with every delicacy and the fondest mother, never knowing in the least how to take care of herself.
And likely to fall down and perish unless the kind campaigner were by to prop and protect her. She was in delicate health, very delicate, ordered cod liver oil by the doctor. Heaven knows how he could be paid for those expensive medicines out of the pittance to which the imprudence. The most culpable in designing imprudence and extravagance and folly of Colonel Lukum had reduced them. Looking out from the window as she spoke, I saw, we both saw, the dear old gentleman sadly advancing towards the house, a parcel in his hand. Seeing his near approach, and that our interview was likely to come to an end, Mrs. McKenzie rapidly whispered to me that she knew I had a good heart. That I had been blessed by providence with a fine fortune, which I knew how to keep better than some folks, and that if, as no doubt was my intention, for with what other but a charitable view could I have come to see them?
And most generous and noble was it of you to come. And I always thought it of you, Mr. Pendennis, whatever other people said to the contrary. If I proposed to give them relief, which was most needful, and for which a mother's blessings would follow me, let it be to her, the campaigner, that my loan should be confided. For as for the Colonel, he is not fit to be trusted with a shilling, and has already flung away a month's sums upon some old woman he keeps in the country, leaving his darling Rosie without the actual necessaries of life. The woman's greed and rapacity, the flattery with which she chose to belabor me at dinner, so choked and disgusted me that I could hardly swallow the meal, though my poor old friend had been sent out to purchase a pate from the pastry cooks for my especial refection.
Clive was not at the dinner. He seldom returned till late at night on sketching days. Neither his wife nor his mother-in-law seemed much to miss him, and seeing that the campaigner engrossed the entire share of the conversation and proposed not to leave me for five minutes alone with the colonel, I took leave rather speedily of my entertainers, leaving a message for Clive and a prayer that he would come and see me at my hotel.
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73 73 - Chapter 73: In which Belisarius returns from Exile 26:32
The Newcomes by William McPeace Thackeray. Chapter 73. In which Belisarius returns from exile. I was sitting in the dusk in my room at Hotel de Benz, when the visitor for whom, I hoped, made his appearance in the person of Clive, with his broad shoulders and broad hat and a shaggy beard, which he had thought fit in his quality of painter to assume. Our greeting, it need not be said, was warm, and our talk, which extended far into the night, very friendly and confidential. If I make my readers confidants in Mr. Clive's private affairs, I ask my friend's pardon for narrating his history in their behoof. The world had gone very ill with my poor Clive, and I do not think that the pecuniary losses which had visited him and his father afflicted him nearly so sorely as the state of his home.
In a pique with the woman he loved, and from that generous weakness which formed part of his character, and which led him to acquiesce in most wishes of his good father, the young man had gratified the darling desire of the Colonel's heart, and taken the wife, whom his two old friends brought to him. Rosie, who was also, as we have shown, of a very obedient and ductal nature, It acquiesced gladly enough in her mama's opinion that she was in love with the rich and handsome young Clive, and accepted him for better or worse. So undoubtedly would this good child have accepted Captain Holby, her previous adorer, have smilingly promised fidelity to the captain at church, and have made a very good, happy, and sufficient little wife for that officer.
Had not Mama commanded her to jilt him? What wonder that these elders should wish to see their two dear young ones united? They began with suitable age, money, good temper, and parents' blessings. It is not the first time that, with all these excellent helps to prosperity and happiness, a marriage has turned out unfortunately. A pretty tight ship gone to wreck, that set forth on its voyage with cheers from the shore, and every prospect of fair wind and fine weather. We have before quoted poor Clive's simile of the shoes with which his good old father provided him. As pretty a little pair of shoes as need be, only they did not fit the wearer. If they pinched him at first, how they blistered and tortured him now.
If Clive was gloomy and discontented, even when the honeymoon had scarce waned, and he and his family sat at home in state and splendor under the boughs of the famous silver coconut tree. What was the young man's condition now in poverty? When they had no love along with the scant dinner of herbs, when his mother-in-law grudged each morsel which his poor old father ate, when a vulgar Coarse-minded woman pursued with brutal sarcasm and deadly rancor one of the tenderest and noblest gentlemen in the world. When an ailing wife, always under someone's domination, received him with helpless hysterical cries and reproaches. When a coarse female tyrant, stupid, obstinate, Utterly unable to comprehend the son's kindly genius or the father's gentle spirit, bullied over both, using the intolerable, undeniable advantage which her actual wrongs gave her to tyrannize over these two wretched men.
He had never heard the last of that money which they had sent to Mrs. Mason, Clive said. When the knowledge of the fact came to the campaigner's ears, she raised such a storm as almost killed the poor colonel and drove his son half mad. She seized the howling infant, vowing that its unnatural father and grandfather were bent upon starving it. She consoled and sent Rosie into hysterics. She took the outlawed parson, to whose church they went, and the choice society of bankrupt captains, captains' ladies, fugitive stockbrokers' wives, and dingy frequenters of billiard rooms, and refugees from the bench into her councils. And in her daily visits amongst these personages, and her walks on the pier, with as she trudged with poor Rosie in her train, Mrs.
Mackenzie made known her own wrongs and her daughter's, so that the Colonel, having robbed and cheated them previously, was now living upon them, insomuch that Mrs. Bolter, the levanting auctioneer's wife, would not make the poor old man a bow when she met him. That Mrs. Captain Kitely, whose husband had lain for seven years past in Boulogne jail, ordered her son to cut Clive. And when, the child being sick, the poor old colonel went for arrowroot to the chemist, young Snooks, the apothecary's assistant, refused to allow him to take the powder away without previously depositing the money. He had no money, Thomas Newcomb. He gave up every farthing. After having impoverished all around him, he had no right, he said, to touch a sixpence of the wretched pittance remaining to them.
He had even given up his cigar, the poor old man, the companion and comforter of forty years. He was not fit to be trusted with money, Mrs. McKenzie said. And the good man owned as he ate his scanty crust, and bowed his noble old head in silence under that cowardly persecution. And this, at the end of three score and seven or eight years, was to be the close of a life which had been spent in freedom and splendor, and kindness and honor. This the reward of the noblest heart that ever beat, the tomb and prison of a gallant warrior who had ridden in twenty battles, whose course through life had been a bounty wherever it had passed, whose name had been followed by blessings, and whose career was to end here, here, in a mean room, in a mean alley of a foreign town.
A low, furious woman, standing over him and stabbing the kind, defenseless heart with killing insult and daily outrage. As we sat together in the dark, Clive told me this wretched story, which was wrung from him with a passionate emotion that I could not but keenly share. He wanted the old man lived, Clive said. Some of the women's taunts and jibes, as he could see, struck his father so that he gasped and started back as if someone had lashed him with a whip. He would make away with himself, said poor Clive, but he deems this is his punishment, then that he must bear it as long as it pleases God. He does not care for his own losses, as far as they concern himself. But these reproaches of Mrs.
McKenzie, and some things which were said to him in the bankruptcy court by one or two widows of old friends who were induced through their representations to take shares in that infernal bank, have affected him dreadfully. I hear him lying awake and groaning at night. God bless him. Great God, what can I do? What can I do? burst out the young man in a dreadful paroxysm of grief. I have tried to get lessons. I went to London on the deck of a steamer and took a lot of drawings with me, tried picture dealers, pawnbrokers, Jews, Moss, whom you may remember at Gandish's, and who gave me, for 42 drawings, 18 pounds. I brought the money back to Boulogne. It was enough to pay the doctor and bury our last poor little dead baby, Ternes.
Pen, you must give me some supper. I have had nothing all day but a pen to do soo. I can't stand it at home. My heart's almost broken. You must give me some money, Pen. Old boy, I know you will. I thought of writing to you, but I wanted to support myself, you see. When I went to London with the drawings, I tried George's chambers, but he was in the country. I saw Crackthorpe on the street in Oxford Street, but I could not face him, and bolted down Hamway yard. I tried, and I could not ask him, and I got the 18 pounds from Moss that day, and came home with it. Give him money? Of course I would give him money, my dear old friend. And, as an alternative and as a wholesome shock to check that burst of passion and grief in which the poor fellow indulged, I thought fit to break into a very fierce and angry invective on my own part, which served to disguise the extreme feeling of pain and pity that I did not somehow choose to exhibit.
I waited Clive soundly and taxed him with unfriendliness and ingratitude for not having sooner applied to friends who would think shame of themselves whilst he was in need. Whatever he wanted was his as much as mine. I could not understand how the necessity of the family should, in truth, be so extreme as he described it, for after all, many a poor family lived upon very much less. But I uttered none of these objections, checking them with the thought that Clive, on his first arrival at Boulogne. Entirely ignorant of the practice of economy, might have imprudently engaged in expenses which had reduced him to his present destitution.
I did not know at that time that Mrs. McKenzie had taken entire superintendents of the family treasury, and that this exemplary woman was putting away, as she had done previously, sundry little sums to meet rainy days. I took the liberty of asking about debts, and of these Clive gave to me understand that there were none, at least none of his or his father's contracting. If we were too proud to borrow, and I think we were wrong, Penn, my dear old boy, I think we were wrong now. At least we were too proud to owe. My color man takes his bill out in drawings, and I think owes me a trifle. He got me some lessons at fifty-sue a ticket, a pound the ten, from an economical swell who has taken a chateau here and has two flunkies in livery.
He has four daughters, who take advantage of the lessons and screws ten percent upon the poor color man's pencils and drawing paper. It's pleasant work to give the lessons to the children and to be patronized by the swell. And not expensive to him, is it, Penn? But I don't mind that, if I could but get lessons enough. For, you see, besides our expenses here, we must have some more money, and the dear old governor would die outright if poor Osara Mason did not get her fifty pounds a year. And now there arrived a plentiful supper, and a bottle of good wine, of which the giver was not sorry to partake after the meager dinner at three o'clock, to which I had been invited by the campaigner. And it was midnight when I walked back with my friend to his house in the upper town, and all the stars of heaven were shining cheerily.
And my dear Clive's face wore an expression of happiness, such as I remembered in old days, as we shook hands and parted with a God bless you. To Clive's friend, revolving these things in his mind as he lay in one of those snug and comfortable beds at the excellent Hotel de Benz. It appeared that this town of Boulogne was a very bad market for the artist's talents, and that he had to bring them to London, where a score of old friends would assuredly be ready to help him. And if the Colonel, too, could be got away from the domination of the campaigner, I felt certain that the dear old gentleman could but profit by his leave of absence. My wife and I, at this time, inhabited a spacious old house in Queen Square, Westminster, where there was plenty of room for father and son.
I knew that Laura would be delighted to welcome these guests. May the wife of every worthy gentleman who reads these pages be as ready to receive her husband's friends. It was the state of Rosa's health and the campaigner's authority and permission, about which I was in doubt, and whether this lady's two slaves would be allowed to go away. These cogitations kept the present biographer long awake, and he did not breakfast next day until an hour before noon. I had the coffee-room to myself by chance, and my meal was not yet ended when the waiter announced a lady to visit Mr. Pendennis, and Mrs. Mackenzie made her appearance. No signs of care or poverty were visible in the attire or countenance of the buxom widow.
A handsome bonnet, decorated within with a profusion of poppies, bluebells, and ears of corn, a jewel on her forehead, not costly, but splendid in appearance, and glittering artfully over that central spot from which her wavy chestnut hair parted to cluster in ringlets round her ample cheeks. A handsome Indian shawl, smart gloves, a rich silk dress, A neat parasol of blue with pale yellow lining, a multiplicity of glittering rings, and a very splendid gold watch and chain, which are remembered in former days as hanging round poor Rosie's white neck. All these adornments set off the widow's person, so that you might have thought her a wealthy capitalist lady, and never could have supposed that she was a poor, cheated, ruined, robbed, unfortunate campaigner.
Nothing could be more gracious than the ecuel of this lady. She paid me many handsome compliments about my literary work, asked most affectionately for dear Mrs. Pendennis and the dear children, and then, as I expected, coming to business, contrasted the happiness and gentile position of my wife and family with the misery and wrongs of her own blessed child and grandson. She never could call that child by the odious name which he received at his baptism. I knew what bitter reason she had to dislike the name of Thomas Newcomb. She again rapidly enumerated the wrong she had received at the hands of that gentleman, mentioned the vast sums of money out of which she and her soul's darling had been tricked by that poor muddle-headed creature, to say no worse of him.
And described finally their present pressing need. The doctors, the burial, Rosie's delicate condition, the cost of sweetbreads, calf's foot jelly, and cod liver oil were again passed in a rapid calculation before me, and she ended her speech by expressing her gratification that I had attended to her advice of the previous day, and not given Clive Newcomb a direct loan. That the family wanted it. The campaigner called upon Heaven to witness. That Clive and his absurd poor father would fling guineas out of the window was a fact equally certain. The rest of the argument was obvious, namely, that Mr. Pendennis should administer a donation to herself. I had brought but a small sum of money in my pocketbook, though Mrs.
McKenzie Intimate with bankers, and having, thank heaven, in spite of all her misfortunes, the utmost confidence of all her tradesmen, hinted a perfect willingness on her part to accept an order upon her friends, Hobson Brothers of London. This direct thrust I gently and smilingly parried by asking Mrs. McKenzie whether she supposed a gentleman who had just paid an electioneering bill, and had, at the best of times, but a very small income, might sometimes not be in a condition to draw satisfactorily upon Mrs. Hobson or any other bankers. Her countenance fell at this remark. Nor was her cheerfulness much improved by the tender of one of the two banknotes which then happened to be in my possession.
I said that I had a use for the remaining note, and that it would not be more than sufficient to pay my hotel bill, and the expenses of my party back to London. My party? I adhered to divulge, with some little trepidation, the plan which I had been making overnight. To explain how I thought that Clive's great talents were wasted at Boulogne, and could only find a proper market in London. How I was pretty certain, through my connection with booksellers, to find some advantageous employment for him, and would have done so months ago had I known the state of the case. But I had believed, until within a very few days since, that the Colonel, in spite of his bankruptcy, This statement, of course, elicited from the widow a number of remarks not complimentary to my dear old colonel.
He might have kept his pensions had he not been a fool. He was a baby about money matters, misled himself and everybody, was a log in the house, etc., etc., etc. I suggested that his annuities might possibly be put into some more satisfactory shape, that I had trustworthy lawyers with whom I would put him in communication, that he had best come to London to see to these matters, and that my wife had a large house where she would most gladly entertain the two gentlemen. This, I said, with some reasonable dread, fearing in the first place her refusal, and the second. Her acceptance of the invitation, with the proposal, as our house was large, to come herself and inhabit it for a while. Had I not seen that campaigner arrive for a month at poor James Binney's house in Fitzroy Square and stay there for many years?
Was I not aware that when she once set foot in a gentleman's establishment, terrific battles must ensue before she could be dislodged? Had she not once been routed by Clive? And was she not now in command and possession? Do I not finally know something of the world, and have I not a weak, easy temper? I protested with terror that I awaited the widow's possible answer to my proposal. To my great relief, she expressed the utmost approval of both my plans. I was uncommonly kind, she was sure, to interest myself about the two gentlemen, and for her blessed Rose's sake, a fond mother thanked me. It was most advisable that he should earn some money by that horrid profession which he had chosen to adopt.
Trade, she called it. She was clearly anxious to get rid of both father and son, and agreed that the sooner they went, the better. We walked back arm-in-arm to the Colonel's quarters in the Old Town, Mrs. McKenzie, in the course of our walk, doing me the honor to introduce me by name to several dingy acquaintances, whom we met sauntering up the street and imparting to me, as each moved away, the pecuniary cause of his temporary residence in Boulogne. Despite of Rosie's delicate state of health, Mrs. McKenzie did not hesitate to break the news to her of the gentleman's probable departure, abruptly and eagerly, as if the intelligence was likely to please her. And it did, rather than otherwise. The young woman, being in the habit of letting Mama judge for her, continued it in this instance, and whether her husband stayed or went, seemed to be equally content or apathetic.
And is it not most kind and generous of dear Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis to propose to receive Mr. Newcomb and the Colonel? This opportunity for gratitude being pointed out to Rosie, she acquiesced in its straight way. It was very kind of me, Rosie was sure. And don't you ask after dear Mrs. Pendennis and the dear children? You poor, dear, suffering, darling child. Rosie, who had neglected this inquiry, immediately hoped Mrs. Pendennis and the children were well. The overpowering mother had taken utter possession of this poor little thing. Rosie's eyes followed the campaigner about, and appealed to her at all moments. She sat under Mrs. McKenzie as a bird before a boa constrictor, doomed, fluttering, fascinated, scared and fawning as a whippet spaniel before a keeper.
The colonel was on his accustomed bench on the rampart at this sunny hour. I repaired thither, and found the old gentleman seated by his grandson, who lay, as yesterday, on the little Bond's lap. One of his little purple hands closed round the grandfather's finger. "'Hush!' says the good man, lifting up his other finger to his mustache, as I approached. "'Boy's asleep. Il est bien joli quand il doit. Le boy, n'est-ce pas, Marie?' The maid believed monsieur well. The boy was a little angel. This maid is a most trustworthy, valuable person, penned Ennis, the colonel said with much gravity. The boa constrictor had fascinated him, too. The lash of that woman at home had cowed that helpless, gentle, noble spirit.
As I looked at the head so upright and manly, now so beautiful and resigned, the year of his past life seemed to pass before me somehow in a flash of thought. I could fancy the accursed tyranny. The dumb acquiescence, the brutal jeer, the helpless remorse, the sleepless nights of pain and recollection, the gentle heart lacerated with deadly stabs, and the impotent hope. I only burst into a sob at the sight and thought of the noble suffering creature and hid my face and turned away. He sprang up. Releasing his hand from the child's, and placing it, the kind shaking hand, on my shoulder. "'What is it, Arthur, my dear boy?' he said, looking wistfully in my face. "'No bad news from home, my dear?
Laura and the children, well?' The emotion was mastered in a moment. I put his arm under mine. And as we slowly sauntered up and down the sunny walk of the old rampart, I told him how I had come with special commands from Laura to bring him for a while to stay with us, and to settle his business, which I was sure had been woefully mismanaged, and to see whether we could not find the means of getting some little out of the wreck of the property for the boy yonder. At first Colonel Newcomb would not hear of quitting Boulogne, where Rosie would miss him. He was sure she would want him, but before the ladies of his family, to whom we presently returned, Thomas Newcomb's resolution was quickly recalled.
He agreed to go, and Clive, coming in at this time, was put in possession of our plan and gladly acquiesced in it. On that very evening, I came with a carriage to conduct my two friends to the steamboat. Their little packets were made and ready. There was no pretense of grief at parting on the women's side. But Marie, the little maid, with boy in her arms, cried sadly, and Clive heartily embraced the child, and the Colonel, going back to give one more kiss, drew out his neck cloth the little gold brooch which he wore, and which, trembling, He put into Marie's hand, bidding her take good care of boy till his return. She is a good girl, a most faithful, attached girl, Arthur, do you see? The kind old gentleman said, and I had no money to give her.
No, not one single rupee.
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74 74 - Chapter 74: In which Clive begins the World 28:21
We are entering our history. And yet poor Clive is but beginning the world. He has to earn the bread which he eats henceforth, and as I saw his labors, his trials, and his disappointments, I could not but compare his calling with my own. The drawbacks and penalties attended upon our profession are taken into full account, as we well know, by literary men and their friends. Our poverty, hardships, and disappointments are set forth with great emphasis, and often with too great truth by those who speak of us. But there are advantages belonging to our trade which are passed over, I think, by some of those who exercise it and describe it, and for which, in striking the balance of our accounts, we are not always truly thankful.
We have no patrons, so to speak. We sit in antechambers no more, waiting the present of a few guineas from my lord, in return for a fulsome dedication. We sell our wares to the book purveyor, between whom and us there is no greater obligation than between him and his paper maker or printer. In the great towns in our country immense stores of books are provided for us, with librarians to class them. Kind attendants to wait upon us, and comfortable appliances for study. We require scarce any capital wherewith to exercise our trade. What other so-called learned profession is equally fortunate? A doctor, for example, after carefully and expensively educating himself, must invest in house and furniture, horses, I am told that such gentlemen have to coax and wheedle dowagers, to humor hypochondriacs, to practice a score of little subsidiary arts in order to make that of healing profitable.
How many hundreds of pounds has a barrister to sink upon his stock and trade before his returns are available? There are the costly charges of university education, the costly chambers in the inn of court, the clerk and his maintenance, the inevitable travels on circuit, certain expenses all to be defrayed before the possible client makes his appearance, and the chance of fame or competency arrives. The prizes are great, to be sure, in the law, but what a prodigious sum the lottery ticket costs! If a man of letters cannot win, neither does he risk so much. Let us speak of our trade as we find it, and not be too eager in calling out for public compassion. The artists, for the most part, do not cry out their woes as loudly as some gentlemen of the literary fraternity, and yet I think the life of many of them is harder.
Their chance is even more precarious, and the conditions of their profession less independent and agreeable than ours. I have watched Smee, Esquire, R.A., flattering and fawning, and at the same time boasting and swaggering poor fellow, in order to secure a sitter. I have listened to a Manchester magnate talking about fine arts before one of J.J.'s pictures. Assuming the ears of a painter, and laying down the most absurd laws respecting the art. I have seen poor Tompkins bowing a rich amateur through a private view, and noted the eager smiles on Tompkins' face and the amateur's slightest joke, the sickly twinkle of hope in his eyes as amateur stopped before his own picture. I have been ushered by Chipstone's black servant through hall after hall, peopled with plaster gods and heroes, into Chipstone's own magnificent studio, where he sat longing vainly for an order, and justly dreading his landlord's claw for the rent.
And, seeing how severely these gentlemen were taxed in their profession, I have been grateful for my own more fortunate one. Which necessitates cringing to no patron, which calls for no keeping up of appearances, and which requires no stock-and-trade save the workman's industry, his best ability, and a dozen sheets of paper.
Having to turn with all his might to his new profession, Glive Newcomb, one of the proudest men alive, chose to revolt and be restive at almost every stage of his training. He had a natural genius for his art, and had acquired, in his desultory way, a very considerable skill. His drawing was better than his painting, an opinion which, were my friend present, he of course would utterly contradict. His designs and sketches were far superior to his finished compositions. His friends, presuming to judge of this artist's qualifications, ventured to counsel him accordingly. And were thanked for their pains in the most usual manner. We had in the first place to bully and browbeat Clive most fiercely, before he would take fitting lodgings for the execution of those designs which we had in view for him.
Why should I take expensive lodgings, says Clive, slapping his fist on the table? I am a pauper, and can scarcely afford to live in a garret. Why should you pay me for drawing your portrait and Laura's and the children? What the deuce does Warrington want with the effigy of his old mug? You don't want them a bit. You only want to give me money. It would be much more honest of me to take the money at once and own that I am a beggar. And I tell you what, Penn. The only money which I feel I come honestly by is that which is paid me by a little print seller in Longacre who buys my drawings, one with another, at fourteen shillings apiece, and out of whom I can earn pretty nearly two hundred a year.
I am doing coaches for him, sir, and chargers of cavalry. The public liked the mail coaches best, on a dark paper. The horses and miles picked out white, yellow dust, cobalt distance, and the guard and coachman, of course, in vermilion. That's what a gentleman can get his bread by. Portraits? Pooh. It's disguised beggary, Crackthorpe, and a half-dozen men of his regiment came, like good fellows as they are, and sent me five pounds apiece for their heads. But I tell you, I am ashamed to take the money. Such use to be the tenor of Clive Newcomb's conversation as he strode up and down our room after dinner, pulling his mustache and dashing his long yellow hair off his gaunt face. When Clive was inducted into the new lodgings, at which his friends counseled him to hang up his ensign, the dear old colonel accompanied his son, parting with the sincere regret from our little ones at home.
To whom he became greatly endeared during his visit to us, and who always hailed him when he came to see us with smiles and caresses and sweet infantile welcome. On that day when he went away, Laura went up and kissed him with tears in her eyes. You know how long I have been wanting to do it, this lady said to her husband. Indeed, I cannot describe the behavior of the old man during his stay with us. His gentle gratitude, his sweet simplicity and kindness, his thoughtful courtesy. There was not a servant in our little household that was eager to wait upon him. Laura's maid was as tender-hearted at his departure as her mistress. He was ailing for a short time, when our cook performed prodigies of puddings and jellies to suit his palate.
The youth who held the offices of butler and valet in our establishment The lazy and greedy youth, whom Martha scolded in vain, would jump up and leave his supper to carry a message to our Colonel. My heart is full as I remember the kind words which he said to me at parting, and as I think that we were the means of giving a little comfort to that stricken and gentle soul. Whilst the Colonel and his son stayed with us, letters of course passed between Clive and his family at Boulogne. But my wife remarked that the receipt of those letters appeared to give our friend but little pleasure. They were read in a minute, and he would toss them over to his father, or thrust them into his pocket with a gloomy face.
Don't you see, groans out Clive to me one evening, that Rosa scarcely writes the letters, or if she does, that her mother is standing over her? That woman is the nemesis of our life pen. How can I pay her off? Great God, how can I pay her off? And so, having spoken, his head fell between his hands, and as I watched him, I saw a ghastly domestic picture before me of helpless pain, humiliating discord, stupid tyranny. What, I say again, are the so-called great ills of life compared to these small ones. The colonel accompanied Clive to the lodgings which we had found for the young artist, in a quarter not far removed from the old house in Fitzroy Square, where some happy years of his youth had been spent.
When sitters came to Clive, as at first they did in some numbers, many of his early friends being anxious to do him a service, the old gentleman was extraordinarily cheered and comforted. We could see by his face that affairs were going on well at the studio. He showed us the rooms which Rosie and the boy were to occupy. He prattled to our children and their mother, who was never tired of hearing him about his grandson. He filled up the future nursery with a hundred little knick-knacks of his own contriving, and with wonderful cheap bargains, which he bought in his walks about Tottenham Court Road. He pasted a most elaborate book of prints and sketches for Boy. It was astonishing what noticed Boy already took of pictures.
He would have all the genius of his father. Would he had had a better grandfather than the foolish old man who had ruined all belonging to him? However much they like each other, men in the London world see their friends but seldom. The place is so vast that even next door is distant. The cause of business, society, pleasure, so multifarious that mere friendship can get or give but an occasional shake of the hand in the hurried moments of passage. Men must live their lives, and are perforce selfish but not unfriendly. At a great need you know where to look for your friend, and he that is secure of you. So I went very little to Howland Street, where Clive now lived, very seldom to Lamb Court, where my dear old friend Warrington still sate in his old chambers, though our meetings were nonetheless cordial when they occurred, and our trust in one another always the same.
Some folks say the world is heartless. He who says so either prates commonplaces, the most likely and charitable suggestion. Or is heartless himself, or is most singular and unfortunate in having made no friends. Many such a reasonable mortal cannot have, our nature, I think, not sufficing for that sort of polygamy. How many persons would you have to deplore your death, or whose death would you wish to deplore? Could our hearts let in such a harem of dear friendships? The mere changes and recurrences of grief and mourning would be intolerable. And tax our lives beyond their value. In a word, we carry our own burden in the world, push and struggle along on our own affairs, are pinched by our own shoes.
Though, heaven forbid, we should not stop and forget ourselves sometimes when a friend cries out in his distress. Or we can help a poor stricken wanderer in his way. As for good women, these, my worthy reader. are different from us. The nature of these is to love and to do kind offices and devise untiring charities. So I would have you to know that, though Mr. Pendennis was parkis, sorum, coulter, and infrequence, Mrs. Laura found plenty of time to go from Westminster to Bloomsbury and to pay visits to her colonel and her clive, both of whom she had got to love with all her heart again. Now misfortune was on them, and both of whom returned her kindness with an affectionate blessing, and the bestower and the receiver, and making the husband proud and thankful whose wife had earned such a noble regard.
What is the dearest praise of all to a man? His own, or that you should love those whom he loves. I see Laura Pendennis, ever constant and tender and pure, ever ministering in her sacred office of kindness, bestowing love and followed by blessings. Which would I have, thank you? That priceless crown hymeneal, or the glory of a tenth edition? Clive and his father had not only a model friend in the lady above mentioned, but a perfect-priced landlady in their happy lodgings. In her house, besides those apartments which Mr. Newcomb had originally engaged, were rooms just sufficient to accommodate his wife, child, and servant, when they should come to him, with a very snug little upper chamber for the colonel, close by Boy's Nursery, where he liked best to be.
And if there is not room for the campaigner, as you call her, says Mrs. Laura, with a shrug of her shoulders, why, I am very sorry, but Clive must try and bear her absence as well as possible. After all, my dear pen, you know he is married to Rosa and not to her mamma. And so, and so I think it would be quite best that they shall have their menage as before. The cheapness of the lodgings which the surprised the landlady let, the quantity of neat new furniture which you put in, the consultations which she had with my wife regarding these supplies, were quite singular to me. Have you pawned your diamonds, you reckless little person, in order to supply all this upholstery? No, sir, I have not pawned my diamonds, Mrs.
Laura answers, and I was left to think, if I thought on the matter at all. That the landlady's own benevolence had provided these good things for Clive. For the wife of Laura's husband was before poor, and she asked me for no more money at this time than at any other. At first, In spite of his grumbling, Clive's affairs looked so prosperous, and so many sitters came to him from amongst his old friends, that I was half inclined to believe with the Colonel and my wife that he was a prodigious genius, and that his good fortune would go on increasing. Laura was for having Rosie return to her husband. Every wife ought to be with her husband. J.J. shook his head about the prosperity. Let us see whether the Academy will have his pictures this year, and what a place they will give him," said Ridley.
To do him justice, Clive thought far more humbly of his compositions than Ridley did. Not a little touching was it to us, who had known the young men in former days, to see them in their changed positions. It was Ridley, whose genius and industry had put him in the rank of a patron. Ridley, the good industrious apprentice who had won the prize of his art, and not one of his many admirers saluted his talent and success with such a hearty recognition as Clive, whose generous soul knew no envy, and who always fired and kindled at the success of his friends. When Mr. Clive used to go over to Boulogne from time to time to pay his dutiful visits to his wife, the Colonel did not accompany his son, but, during the latter's absence, would dine with Mrs.
Pendennis. Though the preparations were complete in Howland Street, and Clive dutily went over to Boulogne, Mrs. Pendennis remarked that he seemed still to hesitate about bringing his wife to London. Upon this, Mr. Pendennis observed that some gentlemen were not particularly anxious about the society of their wives, and that this pair were perhaps better apart, upon which Mrs. Pendennis, drubbing on the ground with a little foot, said, "'Nonsense! For shame, Arthur! How can you speak so flippantly? Did he not swear before heaven to love and cherish her, never to leave her, sir?' "'Is not his duty his duty, sir?' "'A most emphatic stamp of the foot. Is she not his, for better or for worse?' "'Including the campaigner, my dear,' says Mr.
P.' "'Don't laugh, sir. She must come to him. There is no room in Holland Street for Mrs. Mackenzie.' "'You artful scheming creature. We have some spare rooms. Suppose we ask Mrs. Mackenzie to come and live with us, my dear.' And we could then have the benefit of the garrison anecdotes and mestricularities of your favorite, Captain Goby. I could never bear the horrid man, cried Mrs. Bendennis. And how can I tell why she disliked him? Everything being now ready for the reception of Clive's little family, we counseled our friend to go over to Boulogne and bring back his wife and child, and then to make some final stipulation with the campaigner. He saw, as well as we, that the presence and tyranny of that fatal woman destroyed his father's health and spirits, that the old man knew no peace or comfort in her neighborhood.
And was actually hastening to his grave under that dreadful and unremitting persecution. Mrs. McKenzie made Clavisky less wretched than his father. She governed his household, took away his weak wife's allegiance and affection from him, and caused the wretchedness of every single person round about her. They ought to live apart. If she was too poor to subsist upon her widow's pension, which in truth was but a very small pittance, let Clive give up to her, say, the half of his wife's income of one hundred pounds a year. His prospects and present means of earning money were such that he might afford to do without that portion of his income. At any rate, he and his father would be chiefly ransomed at that price from their imprisonment to this intolerable person.
Go, Clive, said his counselors, and bring back your wife and child, and let us all be happy together. For, you see, those advisers opined that if he had written over to Mrs. Newcomb, come, she would have come with the campaigner in her suite. Vowing that he would behave like a man of courage, and we knew that Clive had shown himself to be such in two or three previous battles, Clive crossed the water to bring back his little Rosie. Our good Colonel agreed to dine at our house during the days of his son's absence. I have said how beloved he was by young and old there, and he was kind enough to say afterwards that no woman had made him so happy as Laura. We did not tell him, I know not from what reticence, that we had advised Clive to offer a bribe of fifty pounds a year to Mrs.
Mackenzie, until about a fortnight after Clive's absence, and a week after his return, When news came that poor old Mrs. Mason was dead at Newcomb, whereupon we informed the Colonel that he had another pensioner, now in the campaigner. Colonel Newcomb was thankful that his dear old friend had gone out of the world in comfort and without pain. She had made a will long since, leaving all her goods and chattels to top Miss Newcomb, but having no money to give, The Colonel handed over these to the old lady's faithful attendant, Keziah. Although many of the Colonel's old friends had parted from him, or quarreled with him in consequence of the ill success of the BBC, there were two old ladies who yet remained faithful to him, Miss Cannes, namely, and Honest Little Miss Honeyman of Brighton.
Who, when she heard of the return to London of her nephew and brother-in-law, made a railway journey to the metropolis, being the first time she ever engaged in that kind of traveling, rustled into Clive's apartments in Holland Street in her neatest silks, and looking not a day older than on that when we last beheld her. And after briskly scolding the young man for permitting his father to enter into money affairs, of which the poor dear Colonel was as ignorant as a baby, she gave them both to understand that she had a little sum at her bankers at their disposal, and besought the Colonel to remember that her house was his, and that she should be proud and happy to receive him as soon and as often and for as long a time as he would honor her with his company.
"'Is not my house full of your presents?' cried the stout little old lady. "'Have I not reason to be grateful to all the Newcombs? Yes, to all the Newcombs. For Miss Ethel and her family have come to me every year for months, and I don't quarrel with them, and I won't, although you do, sir. "'Is not this shawl? Are not these jewels that I wear?' she continued, pointing to those well-known ornaments. "'My dear Colonel's gift.'" "'Did you not relieve my brother Charles in this country and procure for him his place in India?' "'Yes, my dear friend, and though you have been imprudent in money matters, my obligations towards you and my gratitude and my affection are always the same.'" Thus Miss Honeyman spoke, with somewhat of a quivering voice at the end of her little oration, but with exceeding state and dignity.
For she believed that her investment of 200 pounds in that unlucky BBC, which failed for half a million, was a sum of considerable importance and gave her a right to express her opinion to the managers. Clive came back from Boulogne in a week, as we have said, but he came back without his wife, much to our alarm, and looked so exceedingly fierce and glum when we demanded the reason of his return without his family. That we saw wars and battles had taken place, and thought that in this last Continental campaign, the campaigner had been too much for her friend. The Colonel, to whom Clive communicated, though with us the poor lad held his tongue, told my wife what had happened. Not all the battles, which no doubt raged at breakfast dinner supper during the week of Clive's visit to Boulogne, but the upshot of these engagements.
Rosie, not unwilling in her first private talk with her husband to come to England with him and the boy, showed herself irresolute on the second day at breakfast, when the fire was opened on both sides, cried at dinner when fierce assaults took place, in which Clive had the advantage, slept soundly, but besought him to be very firm, and met the enemy at breakfast with a quaking heart. cried all that day during which, pretty well without cease, the engagement lasted, and when Clive might have conquered and brought her off, but the weather was windy and the sea was rough, and he was pronounced a brute to venture on it with a wife in Rosie's situation. Behind that situation the widow shielded herself.
She clung to her adored child, And from that bulwark discharged abuse and satire at Clive and his father. He could not rout her out of her position. Having had the advantage on the first two or three days, on the four last he was beaten, and lost ground in each action, Rosie found that in her situation she could not part from her darling Mama. The campaigner for her part averred that she might be reduced to beggary. That she might be robbed of her last farthing and swindled and cheated. That she might see her daughter's fortune flung away by unprincipled adventurers, and her blessed child left without even the comforts of life. But to cert her in such a situation, she never would. No, never. Was not dear Rose's health already impaired by the various shocks which she had undergone?
Did she not require every comfort, every attendance? Monster! Ask the doctor. She would stay with her darling child in spite of insult and rudeness and vulgarity. Rosie's father was a king's officer, not a company's officer, thank God. She would stay as long, at least, as Rosie's situation continued at Malone, if not in London, but with her child. They might refuse to send her money, having robbed her of all her own. But she would pawn her gown off her back for her child. Whimpers from Rosie, cries of, Mama, Mama, compose yourself. Convulsive sobs, clenched knuckles, flashing eyes, and braces rapidly clutched, laughs, stamps, snorts from the disheveled campaigner, grinding teeth, livid fury and repeated breakages of the Third Commandment by Clive.
I can fancy the whole scene. He returned to London without his wife, and when she came, she brought Mrs. Mackenzie with her.
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75 75 - Chapter 75: Founder's Day at the Grey Friars 32:55
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray. Chapter 75 Founder's Day at the Greyfriars Rosie came, bringing discord and wretchedness with her to her husband, and the sentence of death or exile to his dear old father, all of which we foresaw, all of which Clive's friends would have longed to prevent, all of which were inevitable under the circumstances. Clive's domestic affairs were often talked over by our little set. Warrington and F.B. knew of his unhappiness. We three had strongly opined that the women being together at Boulogne should stay there and live there, Clive sending them over pecuniary aid as his means permitted. They must hate each other pretty well by this time, growls George Warrington.
Why on earth should they not part? What a woman that Mrs. McKenzie is, cries F.B. What an infernal tartar and catamaran. She who so uncommonly smiling and soft-spoken, and such a fine woman by jingle, what puzzles all women are, F.P. side, and drowned further reflection in beer. On the other side, and most strongly advocating Rosie's return to Clive, was Mrs. Laura Pendennis, with certain arguments for which she had chapter and verse, and against which we of the separatist party had no appeal. "'Did he marry her only for the days of her prosperity?' asked Laura. "'Is it right, is it manly, that he should leave her now she is unhappy? Poor little creature! No woman had ever more need of protection.
And who should be her natural guardian save her husband? Surely, Arthur, you forget. Have you forgotten them yourself, sir?' The solemn vows which Clive made at the altar. Is he not bound to his wife to keep only unto her, so long as they both shall live? To love and comfort her, honor her, and keep her in sickness and health? To keep her, yes, but not to keep the campaign, cries Mr. Pendennis. It is a moral bigamy, Laura, which you advocate, you wicked, immoral young woman. But Laura, though she smiled at this notion, would not be put off her first proposition. Turning to Clive, who was with us, talking over his doleful family circumstances, she took his hand and pleaded the clause of right and religion with sweet, heartless fervor.
She agreed with us that it was a hard lot for Clive to bear, so much the noble of the task and the fulfillment of duty in enduring it. A few months, too, would put an end to his trials. When his child was born, Mrs. Mackenzie would take her departure. It would even be Clive's duty to separate from her then, as it now was to humor his wife in her delicate condition, and to soothe the poor soul, who had had a great deal of ill-health, of misfortune, of domestic calamity to wear and shatter her. Clive acquiesced with the ground, but with a touching and generous resignation, as we both thought. She is right, Penn, he said. I think your wife is always right. I will try, Laura, and bear my part. God help me.
I will do my duty and strive my best to soothe and gratify my poor, dear little woman. They will be making caps and things, and will not interrupt me in my studio. Of nights I can go to Clipstone Street and work at the Life. There's nothing like the Life, Penn. So you see, I shan't be much at home except at mealtimes, when by nature I shall have my mouth full, and no opportunity of quarreling with poor Mrs. Mack. So he went home, followed and cheered by the love and pity of my dear wife, and determined stoutly to bear this heavy yoke which fate had put on him. To do Mrs. Mackenzie justice, that lady backed up with all her might the statement which my wife had put forward, with a view of soothing poor Clive, viz, that the residence of his mother-in-law in his house was only to be temporary.
Temporary, cries Mrs. Mack, who was kind enough to make a call on Mrs. Pendennis, and treat that lady to a piece of her mind. "'Do you suppose, madam, that it could be otherwise? Do you suppose that Whirls would induce me to stay in a house where I have received such treatment? Where, after I and my daughter had been robbed of every shilling of our fortune, where we are daily insulted by Colonel Newcomb and his son? Do you suppose, ma'am, that I do not know that Clive's friends hate me?' And give themselves ears and look down upon my darling child, and try and make differences between my sweet Rosa and me. Rosa, who might have been dead, or might have been starving, but that her dear mother came to her rescue.
No, I would never stay. I loathe every day that I remain in the house. I would rather beg my bread. I would rather sweep the streets and starve. Though, thank God. I have my pension as the widow of an officer in Her Majesty's service, and I can live upon that, and of that Colonel Newcomb cannot rob me. And when my darling love needs a mother's care no longer, I will leave her. I will shake the dust off my feet and leave that house. I will. And Mr. Newcomb's friends may then sneer at me and abuse me, and blacken my darling child's heart towards me if they choose. And I thank you, Mrs. Pendennis, for all your kindness toward my daughter's family, and for the furniture which you have sent into the house, and for the trouble you have taken about our family arrangements.
It was for this I took the liberty of calling upon you, and I wished you a very good morning. So speaking, the campaigner left my wife, and Mrs. Pendennis enacted the pleasing scene with great spirit to her husband afterwards, concluding the whole with a splendid curtsy and toss of the head, such as Mrs. McKenzie performed as her parting salute. Our dear Colonel had fled before. He had acquiesced humbly with the decree of fate, and, lonely, old, and beaten, marched honestly on the path of duty. It was a great blessing, he wrote to us, to him to think that in happier days and during many years he had been enabled to benefit his kind and excellent relative, Miss Honeyman. He could thankfully receive her hospitality now, and claim the kindness and shelter which this old friend gave him.
No one could be more anxious to make him comfortable. The heir of Brighton did him the greatest good. He had found some old friends, some old Bengalis there, with whom he enjoyed himself greatly, etc. How much did we, who knew his noble spirit, believe of this story? To us heaven had awarded health, happiness, competence, loving children, united hearts, and modest prosperity. To yonder good man, whose long life shone with benefactions, and whose career was but kindness and honor, Fate decreed poverty, disappointment, separation, a lonely old age. We bowed our heads, humiliated at the contrast of his lot and ours, and prayed heaven to enable us to bear our present good fortune meekly, and our evil days, if they should come, with such a resignation as this good Christian showed.
I forgot to say that our attempts to betterend of Snookum's money affairs were quite in vain, the Colonel insisting upon paying every shilling of his military allowances and retiring pension to the parties from whom he had borrowed money previous to his bankruptcy. Ah, what a good man that is, says Mr. Sherrick with tears in his eyes. What a noble fellow, sir. He would die rather than not pay every farthing over. He'd starve, sir, that he would. The money ain't mine, sir. Or if it was, do you think I'd take it from the poor old boy? No, sir, by Jove. I honor and reverence him more now. He ain't got a shilling in his pocket than ever I did when I thought he was a rolling in money. My wife made one or two efforts at Samaritan visits in Holland Street, but was received by Mrs.
Clive with such a faint welcome, and by the campaigner with so grim a countenance, so many sneers, innuendos, insults almost, that Laura's charity was beaten back, and she ceased to press good offices thus thanklessly received. If Clive came to visit us, as he very rarely did, after an official question or two regarding the health of his wife and child, no further mention was made of his family affairs. His painting, he said, was getting on tolerably well. He had work, scantily paid, it is true, but work sufficient. He was reserved, uncommunicative, unlike the Frank Clive of former times, and oppressed by his circumstances as it was easy to see. I did not press the confidence which he was unwilling to offer, and thought best to respect his silence.
I had a thousand affairs of my own, who has not in London? If you die tomorrow, your dearest friend will fear for you a hearty pang of sorrow and go to his business as usual. I could divine, but would not dare to describe, the life which my poor Clive was now leading, the vulgar misery, the sordid home, the cheerless toil, and lack of friendly companionship which darkened his kind soul. I was glad Clive's father was away. The Colonel wrote to us twice or thrice, could it be three months ago? Bless me, how time flies. He was happy, he wrote, with Miss Honeyman, who took the best care of him. Mention has been made once or twice in the course of this history of the Greyfriars School, where the Colonel and Clive and I had been brought up, an ancient foundation at the time of James I, still subsisting in the heart of London City.
The death-day of the founder of the place is still kept solemnly by Cisterians. In their chapel were assembled the boys of the school and the four-score old men of the hospital. The founder's tomb stands, a huge edifice, emblazoned with heraldic decorations and clumsy carved allegories. There is an old hall, a beautiful specimen of the architecture of James's time. An old hall? Many old halls. All staircases, passages, all chambers, decorated with old portraits, walking in the midst of which we walk, as it were in the early 17th century. To others, then, Cistercians, Greyfriars is a dreary place, possibly. Nevertheless, the pupils educated their love to revisit it, and the oldest of us grow young again for an hour or two as we come back into those scenes of childhood.
The custom of the school is that on the 12th of December, the Founder's Day, the head gown boy shall recite a Latin oration in praise of Pandorus Nostri, and upon other subjects, and a goodly company of all Cistercians is generally brought together to attend this oration, after which we go to chapel and hear a sermon, after which we adjourn to a great dinner. Where old con disciples meet, old toasts are given, and speeches are made. Before marching from the oration hall to chapel, the stewards of the day's dinner, according to old-fashioned rite, have wands put into their hands, walk to church at the head of the procession, and sit there in places of honor. The boys are already in their seats, with smug, fresh faces and shining white collars.
The old black-gowned pensioners are on their benches. The chapel is lighted. The Founder's Tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters, heraldries, darkles and shines with most wonderful shadows and lights. There he lies, Fundata Noster, in his roughing gown, awaiting the great examination day. We Ulsters, Be we ever so old, become boys again as we look at that familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are altered since we were here, and how the doctor, not the present doctor, the doctor of our time, used to sit yonder and his awful eye used to frighten us shuddering boys, on whom it lighted, and how the boy next to us would kick our shins during service time. And how the monitor would cane us afterwards because our shins were kicked.
Yonder sit four cheery-cheeked boys, thinking about home and holidays tomorrow. Yonder sit some three-score old gentleman pensioners of the hospital, listening to the prayers and the psalms. You hear them coughing feebly in the twilight, the old Reverend Blackhounds. Is Cod Ajax alive, you wonder? The Cistercian lads called these old gentlemen Cods. I know not wherefore. I know not wherefore. But is old Cod Ajax alive, I wonder? Or Cod Soldier? Or kind old Cod gentleman? Or has the grave closed over them? A plenty of candles lights up this chapel, and the scene of age and youth, and early memories and pompous death. How solemn the well-remembered prayers are. You're uttered again in the place where, in childhood, we used to hear them.
How beautiful and decorous the rite! How noble the ancient words of their supplications, which the priest utters, and to which generations of fresh children and troops of bygone seniors have cried Amen! Under these arches, the service for Founder's Days is a special one, one of the psalms selected being the thirty-seventh, and we hear. Twenty-three, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way. Twenty-four, though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand. Twenty-five, I have been young, and now am old. Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. As we came to this verse, I chanced to look up from my book towards the swarm of black-coated pensioners, and amongst them, amongst them, St.
Thomas Newcomb. His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book. There was no mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital of Greyfriars. His order at the bath was on his breast. He stood there amongst the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. The steps of this good man had been ordered him either, by heaven's decree, to this almshouse. Here was ordained that a life all love, and kindness and honor should end. I heard no more of prayers and psalms and sermon after that. How did I be in the place of Mark? And he, he yonder among the poor. Oh, pardon, you noble soul. I ask forgiveness of you for being of a world that has so treated you. You, my better.
You, the honest and gentle and good. I thought the service would never end, or the organist's voluntaries, or the preacher's homily. The organ played us out of chapel at length, and I waited in the antechapel until the pensioners took their turn to quit it. My dear, dear old friend, I ran to him with a warmth and eagerness of recognition, which no doubt showed themselves in my face and accents, as my heart was moved at the sight of him. His own face flushed up when he saw me, and his hand shook in mine. "'I have found a home,' Arthur," said he. "'Don't you remember before I went to India, when we came to see the old Greyfriars, and visited the Captain Scarsdale in his room? A poor brother like me, an old Peninsular man.
"'Scarsdale is gone now, sir, and is where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' And I thought then, when we saw him, here would be a place for an old fellow when his career was over. To hang his sword up, to humble his soul, and to wait thankfully for the end, Arthur. My good friend, Lord H., who is a Cistercian like ourselves, and has just been appointed a governor, gave me his first nomination. Don't be agitated, Arthur, my boy. I am very happy. I have good quarters, good food, good light and fire, and good friends. Blessed be God. My dear, kind young friend, my boy's friend, you have always been so, sir, and I take it uncommonly kind of you, and I thank God for you, sir.
Why, sir, I am as happy as the day is long. He uttered words to this effect as he walked through the course of the building towards his room. Which, in truth, I found neat and comfortable, with a brisk fire crackling on the hearth, a little tea-table laid out, a Bible and spectacles by the side of it, and over the mantelpiece a drawing of his grandson by Clive. You may come and see me here, sir, whenever you like, and so may your dear wife and little ones tell Laura, with my love. But you must not stay now. You must go back to your dinner. In vain I pleaded that I had no stomach for it. He gave me a look, which seemed to say he desired to be alone, and I had to respect that order and leave him.
Of course, I came to him on the very next day, though not with my wife and children, who were in truth absent in the country at Roseberry, where they were to pass the Christmas holidays, and where, this school dinner over, I was to join them. On my second visit to Greyfriars, my good friend entered more length into the reasons why he had assumed the poor brother's gown, and I cannot say but that I acquiesced in his reasons, and admired that noble humility and contentedness of which he gave me an example. That which had caused him most grief and pain, he said, in the issue of that unfortunate bank, was the thought that poor friends of his had been induced by his representations to invest their little capital in that speculation.
Good Miss Honeyman, for instance, meaning no harm, and in all respects a most honest and kindly disposed old lady, had nevertheless alluded more than once to the fact that her money had been thrown away. And these illusions, sir, made her hospitality somewhat hard to bear, said the Colonel. At home, at poor Clivey's, I mean, it was even worse, he continued. Mrs. Mackenzie, for months past, by her complaints and, and her conduct, has made my son and me so miserable that flight before her, and into any refuge, was the best course. She, too, does not mean ill, Ben. "'Do not waste any of your oaths upon that poor woman,' he added, holding up his finger and smiling sadly. "'She thinks I deceived her, though heaven knows it was myself I deceived.
She has great influence over Rosa. Very few persons can resist that violent and headstrong woman, sir. I could not bear her reproaches on my poor sick daughter, whom her mother leads almost entirely now.'" And it was with all this grief on my mind that, as I was walking one day upon Brighton Cliff, I met my schoolfellow, my Lord H., who has ever been a good friend of mine, and who told me how he had just been appointed a governor of Greyfriars. He asked me to dine with him on the next day, and would take no refusal. He knew of my pecuniary misfortunes, of course. And showed himself most noble and liberal in his offers of help. I was very much touched by his goodness pen, and made a clean breast of it to his lordship, who at first would not hear of my coming to this place, and offered me out of the purse of an old brother's schoolfellow and an old brother's soldier as much, as much as should last me my time.
Wasn't it noble of him, Arthur? God bless him. "'There are good men in the world, sir. There are true friends, as I have found in these later days.' "'Do you know, sir,' he had the old man's eyes twinkled, "'that Fred Bayham fixed up that buck-case yonder "'and brought me my little boy's picture to hang up? "'Boy and Clive will come and see me soon.' "'Do you mean they do not come?' I cried. "'They don't know I am here, sir,' said the Colonel, with a sweet, kind smile. They think I am visiting his lordship in Scotland. Ah, they are good people. When we had had a talk downstairs over a bottle of claret, where my old commander-in-chief would not hear of my plan, we went upstairs to her ladyship, who saw that her husband was disturbed, and asked the reason.
I dare say it was the good Claret that made me speak, sir, for I told her that I and her husband had had a dispute, and that I would take her ladyship for umpire. And then I told her the story over, that I had paid away every rupee to the creditors, and mortgaged my pensions, and retiring allowances for the same end. That I was a burden upon Clivey, who had enough, poor boy, to keep his own family, and his wife's mother, whom my imprudence had impoverished. That here was an honorable asylum, which my friend could procure for me, and was not that better than to drain his purse. She was very much moved, sir. She is a very kind lady, though she passed for being very proud and haughty in India. So wrongly are people judged, and Lord H said, in his rough way, that, by Jove, if Tom Newcomb took a thing into his obstinable head, no one could drive it out, and so, said the Colonel, with his sad smile, I had my own way.
Lady H was good enough to come and see me the very next day, and do you know, Penn, She invited me to go and live with them for the rest of my life, made me the most generous, the most delicate offers. But I knew I was right and held my own. I am too old to work, Arthur, and better here whilst I am to stay than elsewhere. Look, all this furniture came from H. House, and that wardrobe is full of linen, which she sent me. She has been twice to see me. And every officer in this hospital is as courteous to me as if I had my fine house. I thought of the psalm we had heard on the previous evening, and turned to it in the opened Bible, and pointed to the verse, Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him.
Thomas Newcomb, seeing my occupation, laid a kind, trembling hand on my shoulder, and then, putting on his glasses, with a smile bent over the volume, and who they saw him then, and knew him and loved him as I did, who would not have humbled his own heart and breathed his inward prayer, confessing and adoring the divine will. which ordains these trials, these triumphs, these humiliations, these blessed griefs, this crowning love. I had the happiness of bringing Clive and his little boy to Thomas Newcomb that evening, and heard the child's cry of recognition and surprise, and the old man calling the boy's name. As I closed the door upon that meeting, and by the night's mail I went down to Newcomb, to the friends with whom my own family was already staying.
Of course, my conscience-keeper at Roseberry was anxious to know about the school dinner, and all the speeches made, and the guests assembled there. But she soon ceased to inquire about these when I came to give her the news of the discovery of our dear old friend in the habit of a poor brother of Greyfriars. She was very glad to hear that Clive and his little son had been reunited to the Colonel, and appeared to imagine at first that there was some wonderful merit upon my part in bringing the three together. Well, No great merit, Penn, as you will put it, says the confessor. But it was kindly thought, sir, and I like my husband when he is kind best. And don't wonder at your having made a stupid speech at the dinner, as you say you did, when you had this other subject to think of.
That is a beautiful psalm, Penn, and those verses which you were reading when you saw him, especially beautiful. But in the presence of eighty old gentlemen, who have all come to decay, and have all had to beg their bread in a manner, don't you think the clergyman might choose some other psalm?" asked Mr. Van Dennis. They were not forsaken utterly, Arthur, says Mrs. Laura gravely, but rather declines to argue the point raised by me. Namely, that the selection of that especial thirty-seventh psalm was not complimentary of those decayed old gentlemen. All the psalms are good, sir, she says, and this one, of course, is included, and thus the discussion closed. I then fell to a description of Howland Street and poor Clive, whom I had found there over his work.
A dubious maid scant my appearance rather eagerly when I asked to see him. I found a picture-dealer chaffering with him over a bundle of sketches, and his little boy, already pencil in hand, lying in one corner of the room, the son playing about his yellow hair. The child looked languid and pale, the father worn and ill. When the dealer at length took his bargains away, I gradually broke my errand to Clive and told him from whence I had just come. He had thought his father in Scotland with Lord H., and was immensely moved with the news which I brought. I haven't written to him for a month. It's not pleasant, the letters I have to write, Penn, and I can't make them pleasant. Up, Tommykin, and put on your cap, Tommykin jumps up.
Put on your cap and tell them to take off your pinafore. Tell Grandmama. At that name, Tommy Ken begins to cry. Look at that, says Clive, commencing to speak in the French language, which the child interrupts by calling out in that tongue. I speak also French, Papa. Well, my child, you would like to come out with Papa, and Betsy can dress you. He flings off his own paint-stained shooting jacket as he talks, takes a frock coat out of a carved wardrobe, and a hat from a helmet on the shelf. He is no longer the handsome, splendid boy of all times. Can that be Clive, with that haggard face and slouched handkerchief? I am not the dandy I was, Penn, he says bitterly. A little voice is heard crying overhead, and giving a kind of gasp, the wretched father stops in some indifferent speech he was trying to make.
I can't help myself, he groans out. My wife is so ill. She can't attend to the child. Mrs. Mackenzie manages the house for me, and here. Tommy! Tommy! Papa is coming! Tommy has been crying again, and flinging open the studio door. Clive calls out and dashes upstairs. I hear scuffling, stamping, loud voices, poor Tommy's scared little pipe, Clive's fierce objurations, and the campaigner's voice barking out, Do, sir, do, with my child suffering in the next room. Behave like a brute to me, do. He shall not go. He shall not have the hat. He shall... Ah! Ah! A scream is heard. It is Clive tearing a child's hat out of the campaigner's hands, with which, in a flushed face, he presently rushes downstairs, bearing little Tommy on his shoulder.
"'You see what I have come to, Penn,' he says with a heartbroken voice, trying, with hands all of a tremble, to tie the hat on the boy's head. He laughs bitterly at the ill-success of his endeavors. Oh, you silly papa, laughs Tommy, too. The door is slung open, and the red-faced campaigner appears. Her face is mottled with wrath. Her bandos of hair are disarranged upon her forehead. The ornaments of her cap, cheap and dirty and numerous, only give her a wilder appearance. She is in a large and dingy wrapper, very different from the lady who had presented herself a few months back to my wife, how different from the smiling Mrs. Mackenzie of old days. He shall not go out of a winter day, sir, she breaks out.
I have his mother's orders, whom you are killing. Mr. Pendennis, she starts, perceiving me for the first time, and her breast heaves, and she prepares for combat, and looks at me over her shoulder. You and his father are the best judges upon this point, ma'am, said Mr. Pendennis with a bow. A child is delicate, sir, cries Mrs. McKenzie, in this winter. Enough of this, says Clive with a stamp, and passes through her guard with Tommy. And we descend the stairs, and at length are in the free street. Was it not best not to describe at full length this portion of Clive's history?
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76 76 - Chapter 76: Christmas at Rosebury 23:32
We have known our friend Florac under two aristocratic names, and might now salute him by a third, to which he was entitled, although neither he nor his wife ever chose to assume it. His father was lately dead, and Monsieur Paul de Florac might sign himself Duke D'Evry if he chose. But he was indifferent as to the matter, and his wife's friends indignant at the idea that their kinswoman, after having been a princess, should descend to the rank of a mere duchess. So, prince and princess, these good folks remained, being exceptions to that order, inasmuch as their friends could certainly put their trust in them. On his father's death, Florac went to Paris to settle the affairs of the paternal succession, and, having been for some time absent in his native country, returned to Roseberry for the winter, to resume that sport of which he was a distinguished amateur.
He hunted in black during the ensuing season, and, indeed, henceforth laid aside his splendid attire and his allures as a young man. His waist expanded, or was no longer confined by the cestus, which had given it a shape. When he laid aside his black, his whiskers, too, went into a sort of half-mourning, and appeared in grey. I make myself old, my friend, he said pathetically. I have no more neither twenty years nor forty. He went to Roseberry Church no more, but, with great order and sobriety, Drove every Sunday to the neighboring Catholic chapel at Sea Castle. We had an ecclesiastic or two to dine with us at Roseberry, one of whom I inclined to think was Florex director. A reason, perhaps, for Paul's altered demeanor was the presence of his mother at Roseberry.
No politeness or respect could be greater than Paul's towards the Countess. Had she been a sovereign princess, Madame de Flora could not have been treated with more profound courtesy than she now received from her son. I think the humble-minded lady could have dispensed with some of his attentions, but Paul was a personage who demonstrated all his sentiments and performed his various parts in life with the greatest vigor. As a man of pleasure, for instance, what more active way than he? As a jeune homme who could be younger and for a longer time. As a country gentleman in homme d'affaires, he insisted upon dressing each character with the most rigid accuracy, and an exactitude that reminded one somewhat of Bouff, or Fervil, at the play.
I wonder whether, when he is quite old, he will think proper to wear a pigtail like his old father. At any weight, That was a good part which the kind fellow was now acting, of reverence towards his widowed mother and affectionate respect for her declining days. He not only felt these amiable sentiments, but he imparted them to his friends most freely, as his wont was. He used to weep freely. Quite unrestrained by the presence of the domestics, as English sentiment would be, and when Madame de Florac quitted the room after dinner, would squeeze my hand and tell me with streaming eyes that his mother was an angel. Her life has been but a long trial, my friend, he would say. Shall not I, who have caused her to shed so many tears, endeavor to dry some?
Of course, the friends who liked him best encouraged him in an intention so pious. The reader has already been made acquainted with this lady by the letters of hers, which came into my possession sometime after the events, which I am at present narrating. My wife, through our kind friend, Colonel Lucum, had also had the honor of an introduction to Madame de Florac at Paris. And on coming to Roseberry for the Christmas holidays, I found Laura and the children greatly in favor with the good Countess. She treated her son's wife with a perfect, though distant, courtesy. She was thankful to Madame de Montcontour for the latter's great goodness to her son. Familiar with but very few persons, she could scarcely be intimate with her homely daughter-in-law.
Madame de Montcontour stood in the greatest awe of her, and, to do that good lady justice, admired and reverenced Paul's mother with all her simple heart. In truth, I think almost everyone had a certain awe of Madame de Florac, except children, who came to her trustingly and, as it were, by instinct. The habitual melancholy of her eyes vanished as they lighted upon young faces and infantile smiles. A sweet love beamed out of her countenance, and angelic smiles shone over her face as she bent towards them and caressed them. No demeanor then, nay, her looks and ways at other times, a certain gracious sadness, a sympathy with all grief and pity. For all pain. A gentle heart, yearning towards all children, and for her own especially, feeling a love that was almost in anguish, in the affairs of the common world only a dignified acquiescence, as if her place was not in it, and her thoughts were in her home elsewhere.
These qualities, which we had seen exemplified in another life, Laura and her husband watched in Madame de Florac, and we loved her because she was like our mother. I see in such women the good and pure, the patient and faithful, the tried and meek, the followers of him whose earthly life was divinely sad and tender. But, good as she was to us and to all, Ethel Newcomb was the French lady's greatest favorite. A bond of extreme tenderness and affection united these two. The elder friend made constant visits to the younger at Newcomb, and when Miss Newcomb, as she frequently did, came to Roseberry, we used to see that they preferred to be alone, divining and respecting the sympathy which brought those two faithful hearts together.
I can imagine now the two tall forms slowly pacing the garden walks, or turning as they lighted on the young ones in their play. What was their talk? I never asked it. Perhaps Ethel never said what was in her heart, though, be sure, the other knew it. Though the grief of those they love is untold, women hear it, as they soothe it with unspoken consolations. To see the elder lady embrace her friend as they parted was something holy, a sort of saint-like salutation. Consulting the person from whom I had no secrets, we had thought best at first not to mention to our friends the place and position in which we had found our dear colonel, at least to wait for a fitting opportunity on which we might break the news to those who held him in such affection.
I told how Clive was hard at work, and hoped the best for him. Good-natured Madame de Montcontour was easily satisfied with my replies to her questions concerning our friend. Ethel only asked if he and her uncle were well, and once or twice made inquiries respecting Rosa and her child. And now it was that my wife told me what I need no longer keep secret. Of Ethel's extreme anxiety to serve her distressed relatives, and how she, Laura, had already acted as Miss Newcomb's almoner in furnishing and hiring those apartments, which Ethel believed were occupied by Clive and his father, and wife and child. And my wife further informed me with what deep grief Ethel had heard of her uncle's misfortune, and how.
But that she feared to offend his pride, she longed to give him assistance. She had even ventured to offer to send him pecuniary help, but the Colonel, who never mentioned the circumstance to meet any other of his friends, in a kind but very cold letter, had declined to be beholden to his niece for help. So I may have remained some days at Roseberry. And the real position of the two Newcombs was unknown to our friends there. Christmas Eve was come, and, according to a long-standing promise, Ethel Newcomb and her two children had arrived from the park, which dreary mansion, since its double defeat, Sir Barnes scarcely ever visited. Christmas was come, and Roseberry Hall was decorated with holly.
Florek did his best to welcome his friends. And strove to make the meeting gay, though in truth it was rather melancholy. The children, however, were happy, and they had pleasure enough in the school festival, in the distribution of cloaks and blankets to the poor, and in Madame de Montcouture's gardens, delightful and beautiful though the winter was there. It was only a family meeting, Madame de Florec's widowhood not permitting her presence in large companies. Paul stayed at his table between his mother and Mrs. Pendennis, Mr. Pendennis opposite to him, with Ethel and Madame de Molcantour on each side. The four children were placed between these personages, on whom Madame de Florac looked with her tender glances, and to whose little wants the kindest of hosts ministered with uncommon good nature and affection.
He was very soft-hearted about children. Poor Qu'anen avon n'u pas, Jean. He, Qu'anen avon n'u pas, he said, addressing his wife by her Christian name. The poor little lady looked kindly at her husband, and then gave a sigh, and turned and heaped cake upon the plate of the child next to her. No Mama or Aunt Ethel could interpose. It was a very light, wholesome cake. Brown made it on purpose with the children. The little darlings, cries the princess. The children were very happy at being allowed to sit up so late to dinner, at all the kindly amusements of the day, at the holly and mistletoe clustering round the lamps, the mistletoe, under which the gallant Florac, skilled in all British usages, vowed he would have his privilege.
But the mistletoe was clustered around the lamp. The lamp was over the center of the great ground table. The innocent gratification, which he proposed to himself, was denied to Monsieur Paul.
In the greatest excitement and good humor, our host at the dessert made us day-speech. He carried a toast to the charming Ethel, another to the charming Mistress Laura. Another to his good friend, his brave friend, his happy friend, Penn Dennis. Appie as possessor of such a wife. Appie as a writer of works destined to the immortality, etc., etc. The little children round about clapped their happy little hands, and laughed and crowed in chorus. And now the nursery and its guardians were about to retreat, when Floric said he had yet a speech. Get a toast, and he bade the butler pour wine into everyone's glass. Get a toast, and he carried it to the health of our dear friends, of Clive and his father, the good, the brave Colonel.
We who are happy, says he, shall we not think of those who are good? We who love each other, shall we not remember those whom we all love? He spoke with very great tenderness and feeling. "'My bon maire, thou too shalt drink this toast,' he said, taking his mother's hand and kissing it. She returned his caress gently, and tasted the wine with her pale lips. Ethel's head bent in silence over her glass, and, as for Laura, need I say what happened to her. When the ladies went away my heart was opened to my friend Florac. And I told him where and how I had left dear Clive's father. The Frenchman's emotion on hearing this tale was such that I have loved him ever since. Clive in want? Why had he not sent to his friend?
Grand Dieu! Clive, who had helped him in his greatest distress, Clive's father, c'est Fr. Chevalier, c'est parfait Jean-Jolome. In a hundred rapid exclamations, Fleurik exhibited his sympathy, asking of fate why such men as he and I were sitting surrounded by splendors, before golden vases crowned with flowers, with valets to kiss our feet. They were merely figures of speech in which Paul expressed his prosperity. While Starr friend the Colonel, so much better than we, spent his last days in poverty, And alone. I liked Floric, nonetheless, I own, because that one of the conditions of the Colonel's present life, which appeared the hardest to most people, affected Floric but little. To be a pensioner of an ancient institution?
Why not? Might not a man retire without shame to the invalides of the close of his campaigns? And had not fortune conquered our old friend, and age and disaster overcome him? It never once entered Thomas Newcomb's head, nor Clive's, nor Florax's, nor his mother's, that the Colonel demeaned himself at all by accepting that bounty. And I recollect Warrington, sharing our sentiment, and trawling out those noble lines of the old poet. His golden log's time hath to silver turned. O time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing. His youth, gainst time and age, hath ever spurned. But spurned in vain, youth waneth by increasing. Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading scene. Duty, faith, love are roots at evergreen.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees, and lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms. A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, and feed on prayers which are old age's alms. These, I say, respected our friend, whatever was the coat he wore, whereas among the colonel's own kinsfolk, Dire was the dismay and indignation even which they expressed when they came to hear of this, what they were pleased to call degradation to their family. Clive's dear mother-in-law made outcries of the good old man as over a pauper, and inquired of heaven what she had done that her blessed child should have a mendicant for a father. And Mrs. Hobson, in subsequent confidential communication with the writer of these memoirs, improved the occasion religiously as her want was, referred the matter to heaven, too, and thought fit to assume that the celestial powers had decreed this humiliation, this dreadful trial for the Newcomb family, as a warning to them all that they should not be too much puffed up with prosperity.
nor set their affections too much upon things of this earth. Had they not already received one chastisement in Barnes's punishment, and Lady Clara's awful falling away? They had taught her a lesson, which the Colonel's lamentable errors had confirmed—the vanity of trusting in all earthly grandeurs. Thus it was this worthy woman plumed herself, as it were, on her relatives' misfortunes, And was pleased to think the latter were designed for the special warning and advantage of her private family. But Mrs. Hobson's philosophy is only mentioned by the way. Our story, which was drawing to its close, has to busy itself with other members of the House of the Newcombs. My talk with Florak lasted for some time.
At its close, when we went to join the ladies in the drawing room, we found Ethel cloaked and shawled. And prepared for her departure with her young ones, who were already asleep. The little festival was over, and had ended in melancholy, even in weeping. Our hostess stayed in her accustomed seat by her lamp and her work table, but neglecting her needle, she was having perpetual recourse to her pocket-handkerchief, and uttering ejaculations of pity between the intervals of her gushes of tears. Adan de Florak was in her usual place, her head cast downwards, and her hands folded. My wife was at her side, a grave commiseration showing itself in Laura's countenance. Ost, I read a yet deeper sadness in Ethel's pal face.
Miss Newcomb's carriage had been announced. The attendants had already carried the young ones asleep to the vehicle, and she was in the act of taking leave. We looked round at this disturbed party, guessing very likely what the subject of their talk had been, to which, however, Miss Ethel did not allude, but announcing that she had intended to depart without disturbing the two gentlemen, she bade us farewell and good-night. I wish I could say a Merry Christmas, she added gravely, but none of us, I fear, can hope for that. It was evident that Laura had told the last chapter of the Colonel's story. Madame de Flora rose up and embraced Miss Newcomb, and that farewell over, she sank back on the sofa exhausted, and with such an expression of affliction in her countenance, that my wife ran eagerly towards her.
It is nothing, my dear," she said, giving a cold hand to the younger lady, and stayed silent for a few moments, during which we heard Florek's voice without crying adieu, and the wheels of Miss Newcomb's carriage when it drove away. Our host entered a moment afterwards, and remarking, as Laura had done, His mother's pallor and look of anguish went up and spoke to her with the utmost tenderness and anxiety. She gave her hand to her son, and a faint blush rose up out of the past, as it were, and trembled upon her wan cheek. He was the first friend I ever had in the world, Paul, she said, the first and the best. He shall not want, shall he, my son? No signs of that emotion in which her daughter-in-law had been indulging were as yet visible in Madame de Florek's eyes.
But, as she spoke, holding her son's hand in hers, the tears at length overflowed, and with a sob her head fell forwards. The impetuous Frenchman flung himself on his knees before his mother, uttered a hundred words of love and respect for her. And with tears and sobs of his own, called God to witness that their friend should never want. And so this mother and son embraced each other and clung together in a sacred union of love, before which we, who had been admitted as spectators of that scene, stood hushed and respectful. That night Laura told me how, when the ladies left, the talk had been entirely about the Colonel and Clive. Madame de Floric had spoken especially, and much more freely than was her wont.
She had told many reminiscences of Thomas Newcomb and his early days, how her father taught him mathematics when they were quite poor, and living in their dear little cottage, At Blackheath, how handsome he was then, with bright eyes and long black hair flowing over his shoulders. How military glory was his boyish passion, and he was forever talking of India and the famous deeds of Clive and Lawrence. His favorite book was a history of India, the history of Orme. He read it, and I read it also, my daughter, the French lady said, turning to Ethel. I may say so after so many years. Ethel remembered the book as belonging to her grandmother, and now in the library at Newcomb. Doubtless the same sympathy which caused me to speak about Thomas Newcomb that evening impelled my wife likewise.
She told her friends, as I had told Florak, all the Colonel's story. And it was while these good women were under the impression of the melancholy history that Fleurik and his guest found them. Retired to our rooms, Laura and I talked on the same subject until the clock tolled Christmas, and the neighboring church bells rang out a jubilation. And looking out into the quiet night, where the stars were keenly shining, we committed ourselves to rest with humbled hearts, praying For all those we loved, a blessing of peace and goodwill.
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77 77 - Chapter 77: The Shortest and Happiest in the Whole History 5:54
The Newcombs by William Maitley Thackeray. Chapter 77. Shortest and the happiest in the whole history. In the ensuing Christmas morning, I chanced to rise betimes, and entering my dressing room. Opened the windows and looked out on the soft landscape, over which mists were still lying, whilst the serene sky above and the lawns and leafless woods in the foreground near were still pink with sunrise. The grey had not even left the west yet, and I could see a star or two twinkling there to vanish with that twilight. As I looked out, I saw the not very distant lodge gate open after a brief parlay, and a lady on horseback, followed by a servant, rode rapidly up to the house. This early visitor was no other than Miss Ethel Newcomb.
The young lady espied me immediately. "'Come down! Come down to me this moment, Mr. Pendennis,' she cried out. I hastened down to her, supposing rightly that news of importance had brought her to Roseberry so early. The news were of importance indeed. "'Look here,' she said. "'Read this.' And she took a paper from the pocket of her habit. When I went home last night, after Madame de Flora had been talking to us about Ormes India, I took the volumes from the bookcase and found this paper. It is in my grandmother's, Mrs. Newcomb's handwriting. I know it quite well. It is dated on the very day of her death. She had been writing and reading in her study on that very night. I have often speak of the past because of the circumstance.
Look and read. You're a lawyer, Mr. Pendennis. Tell me about this paper. I seized it eagerly and cast my eyes over it, but having read it, my countenance fell. My dear Miss Newcomb, it is not worth a penny. I was obliged to own. Yes, it is, sir, to honest people, she cried out. My brother and uncle would respect it as Mrs. Newcomb's dying wish. They must respect it. The paper in question was a letter in ink that had grown yellow from time, and was addressed by the late Mrs. Newcomb to, my dear Mr. Luce. That was her solicitor, my solicitor still, interposes Miss Ethel. The Hermitage, March 14th, 182. My dear Mr. Luce, the defunct lady wrote, my late husband's grandson has been staying with me lately, and is a most pleasing, handsome and engaging little boy.
He bears a strong likeness to his grandfather, I think, and though he has no claims upon me, and I know is sufficiently provided for by his father, Lieutenant Colonel Newcomb, CB, of the East India's Company service, I'm sure my late dear husband will be pleased that I should leave his grandson, Clive Newcomb, a token of peace and goodwill. And I can do so with more readiness, as it has pleased heaven greatly to increase my means since my husband was called away hence. A desire to bequeath a sum equal to that which Mr. Newcomb willed to my eldest son, Brian Newcomb, Esquire, to Mr. Newcomb's grandson, Clive Newcomb, and furthermore, that a token of my esteem and affection, a ring, or a piece of plate, over the value of one hundred pounds, be given to Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Newcomb, my stepson, whose excellent conduct for many years.
And whose repeated acts of gallantry in the service of his sovereign have long obliterated the just feelings of displeasure with which I could not but view his early disobedience and misbehaviour before he quitted England against my will and entered the military service. I beg you to prepare immediately a condesel to my will, providing for the above requests, and desire that the amount of these legacies should be taken from the property bequeathed to my eldest son. It will be so good as to prepare the necessary document and bring it with you when you come on Saturday. To yours very truly, Sophia Althea Newcomb, Tuesday night. I gave back the paper with a sigh to the finder. It is but a wish of Mrs.
Newcomb, my dear Miss Ethel, I said. Pardon me if I say, I think I know your elder brother too well to suppose that he will fulfil it. He will fulfil it, sir. I am sure he will, Miss Newcomb said, in a haughty manner. He would do as much without being asked. I am certain he would. I didn't know the depth of my dear uncle's misfortune. Barnes is in London now, and... Am you all right to him? I know what the answer will be. I will go to him this very day, Mr. Pendennis. I will go to my dear, dear uncle. I cannot bear to think of him in that place, cried the young lady, the tears starting in her honest eyes. It was the will of heaven! Oh, God be thanked for it! Had we found my grandma's letter earlier, Barnes would have paid the legacy immediately, and the money would have gone in that dreadful bankruptcy.
I will go to Barnes today. Will you come with me? Will you come to your old friend's? He may be at Clive's house this evening, and oh, praise be to God, there need be no more want in his family. My dear friend, I will go with you round the world on such an errand, I said, kissing her hand. How beautiful she looked. The generous colour rose in her face, her voice thrilled with happiness. The music of Christmas church bells leaped up at this moment with joyful gratulations. The face of the old house. Before which we stood talking, shone out in the morning sun. "'You will come, I thank you. I must run and tell Madame de Florac,' cried the happy young lady, and we entered the house together. "'How come you to be kissing Ethel's hand, sir?
And what is the meaning of this early visit?' asked Mrs. Laura, as soon as I had returned to my own apartments. "'Martha, get me a carpet bag. I'm going to London in an hour,' cries Mr. Pendennis. If I had kissed Ethel's hand just now, delighted at the news which she had brought me—' Was not one a thousand times dearer to me, as happy as her friend? I know who prayed with a thankful heart that day as we sped in the almost solitary train towards London.
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78 78 - Chapter 78: In which the Author goes on a Pleasant Errand 23:58
The Newcombs by William McPeace Thackeray. Chapter 78, in which the author goes on a pleasant errand. Before I parted with Miss Newcomb at the station, she made me promise to see her on the morrow at an early hour at her brother's house, and having bidden her farewell and repaired to my own solitary residence, which presented but a dreary aspect on that festive day, I thought I would pay Howland Street a visit, and if invited, eat my Christmas dinner with Clive. I found my friend at home, and at work still, in spite of the day. He had promised a pair of pictures to a dealer for the morrow. He pays me pretty well, and I want all the money he will give me, Penn," the painter said, rubbing on at his canvas.
I am pretty easy in my mind since I have become acquainted with a virtuous dealer. I sell myself to him, body and soul. "'For some half-dozen pounds a week. I know I can get my money, and he is regularly supplied with his pictures. But for Rosie's illness, we might carry on well enough.' "'Rosie's illness? I was sorry to hear of that. And poor Clive, entering into particulars, told me how he had spent upon doctors rather more than a fourth of his year's earnings. There is a solemn fellow. To whom the women have taken a fancy, who lives but a few doors off in Godworth Street, and who, for his last sixteen visits, has taken sixteen pounds sixteen shillings out of my pocket, and as if guineas grew there, with the most admirable gravity.
He talks the fashions to my mother-in-law. My poor wife hangs on every word he says. Look, there is his carriage coming up now. And there is his fee, confound him," says Clive, casting a rueful look towards a little packet lying upon the mantelpiece, by the side of that skinned figure and plaster of Paris, which we have seen in most studios. I looked out of the window and saw a certain fashionable doctor tripping out of his chariot, the lady's delight, who has subsequently migrated from Bloomsbury to Belgravia. And who has his polite foot now in a thousand nurseries and boudoirs? What confesses we're in old times, Quackenboss and his like, are in our Protestant country. What secrets they know!
Into what mystic chambers do they not enter? I suppose the campaigner made a special toilet to receive her fashionable friend. For that lady attired in considerable splendor, and with the precious jewel on her head, which I remembered at Boulogne, came into the studio two minutes after the doctor's visit was announced, and made him a low curtsy. I cannot describe the overpowering civilities of that woman. Clive was very gracious and humble to her. He adopted a lively air in addressing her. Must work, you know, Christmas Day and all, for the owner of the pictures will call for them in the morning. Bring me a good report about Rosie, Mrs. Mackenzie, please, and if you will have the kindness to look at the ecorce there, you will see that little packet which I have left for you.
Mrs. Mack, advancing, took the money. I thought that plaster of Paris figure was not the only ecorce in the room. "'I want you to stay to dinner. You must stay, Penn, please,' cried Clive, "'and be civil to her, will you? My dear old father is coming to dine here. They fancy that he has lodgings at the other end of the town, and that his brothers do something for him. Not a word about great friars. It might agitate Rosa, you know. Ah, isn't he noble, the dear old boy, and isn't it fine to see him in that place?' Clive worked on as he talked, using up the last remnant of the light of Christmas Day, and was cleaning his palette and brushes when Mrs. Mackenzie returned to us. Darling Rosie was very delicate, but Dr.
Clackenboss was going to give her the same medicine which had done the charming young Duchess of Clack Manashear so much good, and he was not in the least disquiet. On this, I cut into the conversation with anecdotes concerning the family of the Duchess of Clackmanshire, remembering early days when it used to be my sport to entertain the campaigner with anecdotes of the aristocracy, about whose proceedings she still maintained a laudable curiosity. Indeed, one of few the books escaped out of the wreck of Tyburn Gardens was a peerage, now a well-worn volume, much read by Rosa and her mother. The anecdotes were very politely received. Perhaps it was the season which made Mrs. Mack and her son-in-law on more than ordinarily good terms, when, turning to the campaigner, Clive said he wished that she could persuade me to stay to dinner.
She acquiesced graciously, and at once in that proposal, and vowed that her daughter would be delighted if I could condescend to eat their humble fare. It is not such a dinner as you have seen at her house, with six side dishes, two flanks, that splintered a pairn, and the silver dishes top and bottom. "'But such as my Rosie has she offers with a willing heart,' cries the campaigner. "'And Tom may sit to dinner, mayn't he, Grandmama?' asked Clive, in a humble voice. "'Oh, if you wish it, sir.' "'His grandfather would like to sit by him,' said Clive. "'I will go out and meet him. He comes through Gifford Street and Russell Square,' says Clive. "'Will you walk, Penn?' "'Oh, pray don't let us detain you,' says Mrs.
Mackenzie, with a toss of her head. And when she retreated, Clive whispered that she would not want me, for she looked to the roasting of the beef and the making of the pudding and the mince-bye. "'I thought she might have a finger in it,' I said. And we set forth to meet the dear old father, who presently came, walking very slowly along the line by which we expected him. His stick trembled as it fell on the pavement. So did his voice, as he called our Clive's name. So did his hand, as he stretched it to me. His body was bent and feeble. Twenty years had not weakened him so much as the last score of months. I walked by the side of my two friends as they went onwards, linked lovingly together.
How I longed for the morrow, and hoped they might be united once more. Thomas Newcomb's voice, once so grave, went up to a treble, and became almost childish as he asked after boy. His white hair hung over his collar. I could see it by the gas under which we walked, and Clive's great back and arm, as his father leaned on it, and his brave face turned towards the old man. Oh, Barnes Newcomb, Barnes Newcomb, be an honest man for once, and help your kinsfolk, thought I. The Christmas meal went off in a friendly manner enough. The campaigner's eyes were everywhere. It was evident that the little maid who served the dinner, and had cooked a portion of it under their keen supervision, cowered under them, as well as other folks.
Mrs. Mack did not make more than ten allusions to former splendors during the entertainment, or half as many apologies to me for sitting down to a table very different from that to which I was accustomed. Good, faithful F. Bayham was the only other guest. He complimented the mince pies, so that Mrs. Mackenzie owned she had made them. The Colonel was very silent, but he tried to feed boy. And was only once or twice sternly corrected by the campaigner. Boy, in his best little words he could muster, asked why Grandpapa wore a black cloak. Clive nudged my foot under the table. The secret of the poor brothership was very nearly out. The colonel blushed, and with great presence of mind said he wore a cloak to keep him warm in winter.
Rosie did not say much. She had grown lean and languid. The light of her eyes had gone out. All her pretty freshness had faded. She ate scarce anything, though her mother pressed her eagerly, and whispered loudly that a woman in her situation ought to strengthen herself. Poor Rosie was always in a situation. When the cloth was withdrawn, the Colonel bending his head said, Thank God for what we have received. So reverently, and with such an accent so touching. That Fred Bayham's big eyes, as he turned towards the old man, filled up with tears. When his mother and grandmother rose to go away, poor little boy cried to stay longer, and the Colonel would have meekly interposed, but the domineering campaigner cried, "'Nonsense!
Let him go to bed!' and flounced him out of the room. And nobody appealed against that sentence. Then we three remained and strove to talk as cheerfully as we might, speaking now of old times and presently of new. Without the slightest affectation, Thomas Newcomb told us that his life was comfortable and that he was happy in it. He wished that many others of the old gentlemen, he said, were as contented as himself. But some of them grumbled sadly. He owned and quarreled with their bread and butter. He, for his part, had everything he could desire. All the offices of the establishment were most kind to him. An excellent physician came to him when wanted. A most attentive woman waited on him. And if I wear a black gown, said he, is not that uniform as good as another?
And if we have to go to church every day, at which some of the poor brothers grumble, I think an old fellow can't do better. And I can say my prayers with a thankful heart, Cliving my boy, and should be quite happy but for my past imprudence. God forgive me. Think of Bayham here coming to our chapel today. He often comes. That was very right, sir. Very right. Clive, filling a glass of wine, looked at F.B., with eyes that said, God bless you. F.B. gulped down another bumper. It is almost a merry Christmas, said I, and oh, I hope it will be a happy new year. Shortly after nine o'clock, the colonel rose to depart, saying he must be in barracks by ten, and Clive and F.B. went a part of the way with him.
I would have followed them, but he whispered me to stay and talk to Mrs. Mack, for heaven's sake, and that he would be back ere long. So I went and took tea with the two ladies, and as we drank it, Mrs. Mackenzie took occasion to tell me she did not know what amount of income the Colonel had from his wealthy brother, but that they never received any benefit from it. And, again, she computed to me all the sums, principle, and interest which ought, at that moment, to belong to her darling Rosie. Rosie now and again made a feeble remark. She did not seem pleased or sorry when her husband came in, and presently, dropping me a little curtsy, went to bed under the charge of the campaigner. So Bayham and I and Clive retired to the studio, where smoking was allowed, and where we brought that Christmas day to an end.
At the appointed time on the next afternoon, I called upon Miss Newcomb at her brother's house. Sir Barnes Newcomb was quitting his own door as I entered it, and he eyed me with such a severe countenance as made me augur but ill of the business upon which I came. The expression of Ethel's face was scarcely more cheering. She was standing at the window, sternly looking at Sir Barnes, who yet lingered at his own threshold. Having some altercation with his cabboy, Airy mounted his vehicle to drive into the city. Miss Newcomb was very pale when she advanced and gave me her hand. I looked with some alarm into her face and acquired what news. "'It is as you expected, Mr. Pendetta,' she said. "'Not as I did.
My brother is averse to making restitution. He just now parted from me in some anger. But it does not matter. The restitution must be made, if not by Barnes, by one of our family, must it not?' "'God bless you for a noble creature, my dear, dear Miss Newcomb,' was all I could say. "'For doing what is right.' "'Ought I not to do it? I am the eldest of our family after Barnes. I am the richest after him. Our father left all his younger children the very sum of money which Mrs. Newcomb here devises to Clive. And you know besides, I have all my grandmother's, Lady Q's property. Why, I don't think I could sleep if this act of justice were not done. Will you come with me to my lawyers?' He and my brother Barnes are trustees of my property, and I have been thinking, dear Mr.
Pendennis, and you are very good to be so kind, and to express so kind an opinion of me, and you and Laura have always, always been the best friends to me. She says this, taking one of my hands and placing her other hand over it. I have been thinking, you know, that this transfer had better be made through Mr. Luce. You understand, and is coming from the family, and then I need not appear in it at all, you see, and my dear good uncle's pride need not be wounded. She fairly gave way to tears as she spoke, and for me, I longed to kiss the hem of her robe or anything else she would let me embrace. I was so happy and so touched for the simple demeanor and affection of the noble young lady. "'Dear Ethel,' I said, "'did I not say I would go to the End of the World with you?
And won't I go to Lincoln's Inn?' A cab was straightway sent for, and in another half hour we were in the presence of the courtly little old Mr. Luce in his chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He knew the late Mrs. Newcomb's iron riding at once. He remembered having seen the little boy at the Hermitage, had talked with Mr. Newcomb regarding his son in India, and had even encouraged Mrs. Newcomb in her idea of leaving some token of goodwill to the latter. I was to have dined with your grandmama on the Saturday with my poor wife. Why, bless my soul, I remember the circumstance perfectly well, my dear young lady. There can't be a doubt about the letter. "'But, of course, the bequest is no bequest at all, and Colonel Newcomb has behaved so ill to your brother that I suppose Sir Barnes will not go out of his way to benefit the Colonel.' "'What would you do, Miss Toulouse?' asked the young lady.
"'Hmm. And pray why should I tell you what I should do under the circumstances,' replied the little lawyer. "'Upon my word, Miss Newcomb, I think I should leave matters as they stand.' Sir Barnes and I, you are aware, are not the very best of friends. As your father's, your grandmother's old friend and advisor, your own too, my dear young lady, I and Sir Barnes Newcomb remain on civil terms. But neither is over much pleased with the other, to say the truth. And at any rate, I cannot be accused, nor can anyone else that I know of, of being a very warm partisan of your brothers. But candidly, were his case mine, had I a relation who had called me unpleasant names and threatened me, I don't know with what, with sword and pistol, who had put me to five or six thousand pounds expense in contesting an election which I had lost.
I should give him, I think, no more than the law obliged me to give him. And that, my dear Miss Newcomb, is not one farthing. "'I am very glad to say so,' said Miss Newcomb, rather to my astonishment. "'Of course, my dear young lady. And so you need not be alarmed at showing your brother this document. Is not that the point about which you came to consult me? You wished that I should prepare him for the awful disclosure, did you not? You know, perhaps, that he does not like to part with his money, and thought the appearance of this note might agitate him?' It has been a long time coming to its address, but nothing can be done, don't you see? And be sure Sir Barnes Newcomb will not be the least agitated when I tell him its contents.
I mean, I am very glad you think my brother is not called upon to obey Mrs. Newcomb's wishes, because I need not think so hardly of him as I was disposed to do," Mrs. Newcomb said. I showed him the paper this morning. And he repelled it with scorn, and not kind words passed between us, Mr. Luce, and unkind thoughts remained in my mind. But if he, you think, is justified, it is I who have been in the wrong for saying that he was self, for abrading him as I own I did. You called him selfish. You had words with him. Such things have happened before, my dear Moose Newcomb, in the best regulated families. But if he is not wrong, sir, holding his opinions, surely I should be wrong, sir, with mine, not to do as my conscience tells me.
And having found this paper only yesterday at Newcomb, in the library there, in one of my grandmother's books, I consulted with this gentleman, the husband of my dearest friend, Mrs. Pendennis, the most intimate friend of my uncle and cousin Clive. And I wish and I desire and insist that my share of what my poor father left us girls should be given to my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcomb, in accordance with my grandmother's dying wishes. My dear, you gave away your portion to your brothers and sisters ever so long ago, cried the lawyer. I desire, sir, that six thousand pounds may be given to my cousin, Miss Newcomb said, blushing deeply. "'My dear uncle, the best man in the world, "'oh, my love with all my heart, sir, "'is in the most dreadful poverty.
"'Do you know where he is, sir? "'My dear, kind, generous uncle?' And kindling as she spoke, and with eyes beaming a bright kindness, and flushing cheeks, and a voice that thrilled to the heart of those two who heard her, Miss Newcomb went on to tell of her uncle's and cousin's misfortunes, and of her wish unto God to relieve them. I see before me now the figure of the noble girl as she speaks, the pleased little old lawyer, bobbing his white head, looking up at her with his twinkling eyes. Patting his knees, patting his snuffbox, as he sits before his tapes and his deeds, surrounded by a great background of tin boxes. And I understand you want this money paid as coming from the family, and not from Miss Newcomb, says Mr.
Luce. Coming from the family exactly, answers Miss Newcomb. Mr. Luce rose up from his old chair, his worn-out old horse-haired chair. where he had sat for half a century and listened to many a speaker. Very different from this one. Mr. Pendennis, he said, I envy you your journey along with this young lady. I envy you the good news you are going to carry to your friends. And, Miss Newcomb, as I am an old, old gentleman, "'Who have known your family these sixty years and saw your father in his long clothes, may I tell you how heartily and sincerely I love and respect you, my dear. When should you wish Mr. Clive Newcomb to have his legacy?' "'I think I should like Mr. Pendennis to have it this instant, Mr.
Luce. Please,' said the young lady, and a veil dropped over her face as she bent her head down. Mr. Luce laughed at her impetuosity, but said that if she was bent upon having the money, it was at her instant service. And before we left the room, Mr. Luce prepared a letter addressed to Clive Newcomb, Esquire, in which he stated, That amongst the books of the late Mrs. Newcomb, a paper had only just been found, of which a copy was enclosed, and that the family of the late Sir Brian Newcomb, desirous to do honor to the wishes of the late Mrs. Newcomb, had placed the sum of six thousand pounds at the bank of Mrs. H.W., at the disposal of Mr. Clive Newcomb. Of whom Mr. Luce had the honor to sign himself the most obedient servant, etc.
And the letter approved and copied, Mr. Luce said Mr. Pendennis might be the postman thereof, if Miss Newcomb so willed it, and, with this document in my pocket, I quitted the lawyers' chambers with my good and beautiful young companion. Our cab had been waiting several hours in Lincoln's Inn Fields. And I asked Miss Ethel whether I should now conduct her. Where is Greyfriars? she said. Mayn't I go see my uncle?
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79 79 - Chapter 79: In which Old Friends come together 35:27
In which old friends come together. We made the descent of Snow Hill. We passed by the Myry Pins of Smithfield. We traveled through the street of St. John and presently reached the ancient gateway in Cistercian Square, where lies the old hospital of Greyfriars. I passed through the gate, my fair young companion on my arm, and made my way to the rooms occupied by Brother Newcomb. As we traversed the court, the poor brothers were coming from dinner. A couple of score or more of old gentlemen in black gowns, issued from the door of their refectory, and separated over the court, betaking themselves to their chambers. Ethel's arm trembled under mind as she looked at one and another. Expecting to behold her dear uncle's familiar features, but he was not among the brethren.
We went to his chamber, of which the door was open. A female attendant was arranging the room. She told us Colonel Newcomb was out for the day, and thus our journey had been made in vain. Ethel went round the apartment and surveyed its simple decorations. She looked at the pictures of Clive and his boy. The two sabers crossed over the mantelpiece, the Bible laid on the table by the old lattice window. She walked slowly up to the humble bed and sat down on the chair near it. No doubt her heart prayed for him who slept there. She turned round where his black punch in his cloak was hanging on the wall, and lifted up the homely garment and kissed it. The servant looked on, admiring. I should think, her melancholy and her gracious beauty.
I whispered to the woman that the young lady was the Colonel's niece. "'He has a son who comes here, and is very handsome, too,' said the attendant." The two women spoke together for a while. "'Oh, Miss,' cried the elder and humbler, evidently astonished at some gratuity which Miss Newcomb bestowed upon her. I didn't want this to be good to him. Everybody here loves him for himself, and I would sit up for him for weeks. That I would. My companion took a pencil from her bag and wrote, Ethel, on a piece of paper and laid the paper on the Bible. Darkness had again fallen by this time. Feeble lights were twinkling in the chamber windows of the poor brethren as we issued into the courts. Fever lights illumining a dim, gray, melancholy old scene.
Many a career, once bright, was flickering out here in the darkness. Many a night was closing in. We went away silently from that quiet place, and in another minute were in the flare and din and tumult of London. The Colonel is most likely gone to Clive's, I said. Would not Miss Newcomb follow him thither? We consulted whether she should go. She took heart and said, Yes. Drive, cabman, to Holland Street. The horse was, no doubt, tired, for the journey seemed extraordinarily long. I think neither of us spoke a word on the way. I ran upstairs to prepare our friends for the visit. Clive, his wife, his father, and his mother-in-law were seated by a dim light in Mrs. Clive's sitting room. Rosie on the sofa, as usual, the little boy on his grandfather's knees.
I hardly made a bow to the ladies. So eager was I to communicate with Colonel Newcomb. I have just been to your quarters at Great Friars, sir, said I. That is, you have been to the hospital, sir. You need not be ashamed to mention it, as Colonel Newcomb is not ashamed to go there, cried out the campaigner. Please speak in your own language, Clive, unless there is something not fit for ladies to hear. Clive was growling out to me in German that there had just been a terrible scene. His father having, a quarter of an hour previously, let slip the secret about Greyfriars. See, at once, Clive, the campaigner cried, rising in her might, and extending a great strong arm over her helpless child, that Colonel Newcomb owns, that he has gone to live as a pauper in a hospital.
He who has squandered his own money. He who has squandered my money. He who has squandered the money of that darling helpless child. Compose yourself, Rosie, my love. "'has completed the disgrace of the family by his present mean and unworthy—' Yes, I say mean and unworthy and degraded conduct. "'Oh, my child, my blessed child, to think that your husband's father should have come to a workhouse!' Whilst this maternal agony bursts over her, Rosa on the sofa bleats and whimpers amongst the faded gents' cushions. I took Clive's hand, which was cast up to his head, striking his forehead with mad, impotent rage. Once this fiend of a woman lashed his good father. The veins of his great fist were swollen.
His whole body was throbbing and trembling with the helpless pain under which he writhed. Colonel Newcomb's friends, ma'am, I said, think very differently from you. And that he is a better judge than you or anyone else of his own honor. We all, who loved him in his prosperity, love and respect him more than ever for the manner in which he bears his misfortune. Do you suppose that his noble friend, the Earl of H., would have counseled him to step unworthy of a gentleman? That the prince de moncouture would applaud his conduct as he does, if he did not think it admirable? I can hardly say with what scorn I used this argument, or what depth of contempt I felt for the woman whom I knew it would influence.
And at this minute, I added, I have come from visiting the Greyfriars with one of the Colonel's relatives, whose love and respect for him is boundless, who longs to be reconciled to him, and who is waiting below, eager to shake his hand and embrace Clive's wife. Who is that, says the Colonel, looking gently up as he pats Boy's head? Who is it, Penn? cries Clive. I said in a low voice, Ethel, and starting up and crying, Ethel, Ethel, he ran from the room. Little Mrs. Rosa started up too on her sofa, clutching hold of the table cover with her lean hand, and the two red spots on her cheeks burning more fiercely than ever. I could see what passion was beating in that poor little heart. Heaven help us!
What a resting place that friends and parents prepared for it! For shame! Miss Newcomb, is it? My darling Rosa? Get on your shawl, cried the campaigner, a grim smile lighting her face. It is Ethel. Ethel is my niece. I used to love her when she was quite a little girl, says the Colonel, patting boy on the head. And she is a very good, beautiful little child. A very good child. The torture had been too much for that kind old heart. There were times when Thomas Newcomb passed beyond it. But still maddened Clive, excited his father no more. The pain yawned a woman inflicted only felled and stupefied him. As the door opened, the little white-headed child trotted forwards toward the visitor, and Ethel entered on Clive's arm, who was as haggard and pale as death.
Little boy, looking up at the stately lady, still followed beside her as she approached her uncle, who remained sitting. His head bent to the ground. His thoughts were elsewhere. Indeed, he was following the child and about to caress it again. "'Here is a friend, Father,' says Clive, laying a hand on the old man's shoulder. "'It is I, Ethel Uncle,' the young lady said, taking his hand and kneeling down between his knees. She flung her arms round him and kissed him and wept on his shoulder." His consciousness had quite returned ere an instant was over. He embraced her with the warmth of his old affection, uttering many brief words of love, kindness, and tenderness, such as men speak when strongly moved.
The little boy had come wandering up to the chair, whilst this embrace took place, and Clive's tall figure bent over the three. Rose's eyes were not good to look at, as she stared at the group with a ghastly smile. Mrs. McKenzie surveyed the scene in haughty state from behind the sofa cushions. She tried to take one of Rose's lean, hot hands. The poor child tore it away, leaving her rings behind her, lifted her hands to her face, and cried, cried as if her little heart would break. Ah, me! What a story was there! What an outburst of pent-up feeling! What a passion of pain! The ring had fallen to the ground. The little boy crept towards it and picked it up and came towards his mother, fixing on his large, wandering eyes.
Mama crying. Mama's ring, he said, holding up the circle of gold. With more feeling than I'd ever seen her exhibit, she clasped the boy in her wasted arms. Great Heaven! What passion, jealousy, grief, despair! We're tearing and trying all these hearts, that, but for fate, might have been happy. Clive went round, and with the utmost sweetness and tenderness, hanging round his child and wife, soothed her with words of consolation that in truth I scarce heard, being ashamed almost of being present at this sudden scene. No one, however, took notice of the witnesses, and even Mrs. McKenzie's voice was silent for the moment. I dare say Clive's words were incoherent, but women had more presence of mind, and now Ethel, with a noble grace which I cannot attempt to describe, going up to Rosa, seated herself by her, spoke of her long grief at the differences between her dearest uncle and herself, of her early days, when he had been as a father to her, of her wish, her hope that Rosa should love her as a sister.
And of her belief that better days and happiness were in store for them all. And she spoke to the mother about her boy so beautiful and intelligent, and told her how she had brought up her brother's children, and hoped that this one, too, would call her Aunt Evel. She would not stay now. Might she come again? Would Rosa come to her with her little boy? Would he kiss her? He did so with a very good grace, but when Ethel, at parting, embraced the child's mother, Rose's face wore a smile ghastly to look at, and the lips that touched Ethel's cheeks were quite white. I shall come and see you again tomorrow, Uncle, may I not? I saw your room today, sir, and your housekeeper, such a nice old lady, and your black gown, and you shall put it on tomorrow and walk with me.
"'And show me the beautiful old buildings of that old hospital, "'and I shall come and make tea for you, "'the housekeeper says I may. "'Will you come down with me to my carriage?' "'No, Mr. Pendennis must come.' "'And she quitted the room, beckoning me after her. "'You will speak to Clive now, won't you,' she said, "'and come to me this evening, "'and tell me all before you go to bed.' "'I went back. Anxious in truth to the messenger of good tidings, to my dear old friends. Brief as my absence had been, Mrs. McKenzie had taken advantage at that moment again to outrage Clive and his father, and to announce that Rosa might go to see this Miss Newcomb, whom people respected because she was rich, but whom she would never visit.
No, never. An insolent. Proud, impertinent thing. Does she take me for a housemaid? Mrs. McKenzie had inquired. Am I dust to be trampled beneath her feet? Am I a dog that you can't throw me a word? Her arms were stretched out, and she was making this inquiry as to her own canine qualities as I re-entered the room and remembered that Ethel had never once addressed a single word to Mrs. McKenzie in the course of her visit. I affected not to perceive the incident and presently said that I wanted to speak to Clive in his studio. Knowing that I had brought my friend one or two commissions for drawings, Mrs. McKenzie was civil to me and did not object to our colloquies. Will you come, too, and smoke a pipe, Father, says Clive.
Of course your father intends to stay to dinner, says the campaigner, with a scornful toss of her head. Clive groaned out as we were on the stair. That he could not bear this much longer. By heavens, he could not. Give the Colonel his pipe, Clive, said I. Now, sir, down with you in the sitter's chair, and smoke the sweetest cheroot you ever smoked in your life. My dear, dear old Clive, you need not bear with the campaigner any longer. You may go to bed without this nightmare tonight, if you like. "'You may have your father back under your roof again.' "'My dear Arthur, I must be back at ten, sir. "'Back at ten. Military time. Drum beats? No. Bell tolls at ten. And gates close.' And he laughed and shook his old head.
"'Besides, I am to see a young lady, sir. "'And she is coming to make tea for me. "'And I must speak with Mrs. Jones to have all things ready.' All things ready. And again the old man laughed as he spoke. His son looked at him, and then at me with eyes full of sad meaning. How do you mean, Arthur Clive said, that he can come and stay with me, and that that old woman can go? Then, feeling in my pocket for Mr. Luce's letter, I grasped my dear Clive by the hand and bade him prepare for good news. I told him how providentially, two days since, Ethel, in the library at Newcomb, looking into Orm's history of India, a book which old Mrs. Newcomb had been reading on the night of her death, had discovered a paper, of which the accompanying letter enclosed a copy, and I gave my friend the letter.
He opened it and read it through. I cannot say that I saw any particular expression of wonder in his countenance, for somehow, all the while Clive perused this document, I was looking at the Colonel's sweet, kind face. "'It is Ethel's doing,' said Clive in a hurried voice. "'There was no such letter.' "'Upon my honor,' I answered, "'there was. We came up to London with it last night, a few hours after she had found it. We showed it to Sir Barnes Newcomb, who could not disown it. We took it to Mr. Luce, who recognized it at once, who was old Mrs. Newcomb's man of business, and continues to be the family lawyer. And the family recognizes the legacy and has paid it, and you may draw for it tomorrow as you see.
What a piece of good luck it is that it did not come before the BBC time. That confounded Bundlekun bank would have swallowed up this like all the rest. Father, Father, do you remember Orme's history of India, cries Clive? Orme's history? Of course I do. I could repeat whole pages of it when I was a boy, says the old man, and began forthwith. The two battalions advanced against each other, counting adding, Until the French, coming to a hollow way, imagined that the English would not venture to pass it. But Major Lawrence ordered the sepoys and artillery, the sepoys and artillery, to halt and defend the convoy against the Maratos. Maratos Ormes calls them. Ho, ho! I could repeat whole pages, sir.
It is the best book that was ever written, calls out Clive. The Colonel said he had not read it, but he was informed Mr. Mills was a very learned history. He intended to read it. Eh, there's plenty of time now, said the good Colonel. I have all day long at Greyfriars. After chapel, you know. Do you know, sir, when I was a boy I used what they called to tip out and run down to a public house in Cistercian Lane? The Red Cowl, sir. And by rum there? I was a terrible wild boy, Clivey. You weren't so, sir, thank heaven. A terrible wild boy, and my poor father flogged me, though I think it was very hard on him. It wasn't the pain, you know. It wasn't the pain, but... Here tears came into his eyes, and he dropped his head on his hand, and the cigar fell from it onto the floor, burnt almost out, and scattering white ashes.
Clive looked sadly at me. He was often so a boulogne, Arthur. He whispered. After a scene with that, that woman yonder, his head would go. He never replied to her taunts. He bore her infernal cruelty without an unkind word. Oh, I pay her back. Thank God I can pay her. But who shall pay her, he said, trembling in every limb, for what she has made that good man suffer? He turned to his father, who still sate lost in his meditations. You need never go back to Grapefather's father, he cried out. Not go back, Clivey. Must go back, boy, to say Adzim when my name is called. Newcomb, Adzim. Hey, that is what we used to say, we used to say. "'You need not go back except to pack your things and return and live with me and boy,' Clive continued, and he told Colonel Newcomb rapidly the story of the legacy.
The old man seemed hardly to comprehend it. When he did, the news scarcely elated him. When Clive said, "'They could now pay Mrs. McKenzie,' the Colonel replied, "'Quite right, quite right.'" And added up the sum, principal, and interest in which they were indebted to her. He knew it well enough, the good old man. Of course we shall pay her, Clive, when we can. But in spite of what Clive had said, he did not appear to understand the fact that the debt to Mrs. McKenzie was now actually to be paid. As we were talking, a knock came to the studio door. And that summons was followed by the entrance of the maid, who said to Clive, "'If you please, sir,' Mrs. McKenzie says, "'how long are you a-going to keep the dinner waiting?' "'Come, Father.
Come to dinner,' cries Clive. "'And, Penn, you will come too, won't you?' he added. "'It may be the last time you dine in such pleasant company.' "'Come along,' he whispered hurriedly. "'I should like you to be there.'" It will keep her tongue quiet. As we proceeded to the dining room, I gave the Colonel my arm, and the good man prattled to me something about Mrs. McKenzie having taken shares in the Bundlekin Banking Company, and about her not being a woman of business, and fancying we had spent her money. And I have always felt a wish that Claudia should pay her. And he will pay her. I know he will, says the Colonel. And then we shall lead a quiet life, Arthur, for, between ourselves, some women are the deuce when they are angry, sir.
And again he laughed, as he told me this sly news, and he bowed meekly his gentle old head as we entered the dining room. That apartment was occupied by little boy already seated in his high chair, and by the campaigner only. who stood at the mantelpiece in a majestic attitude. On party with her, before we had joined to Clive's studio, I had made my bow and taken my leave in form, not supposing that I was about to enjoy her hospitality yet again. My return did not seem to please her. "'Does Mr. Pendennis favor us with his company to dinner again, Clive?' she said, turning to her son-in-law. Clive curtly said. Yes, he had asked Mr. Pendennis to stay. You might at least have been so kind as to give me notice, says the campaigner, still majestic but ironical.
You will have but a poor meal, Mr. Pendennis, and one such as I'm not accustomed to give my guests. Cold beef! What the deuce does it matter, says Clive, beginning to carve the joint. Which, hot, had served our yesterday's Christmas table. It does matter, sir. I am not accustomed to treat my guests in this way, Maria, who had been cutting that beef. Three pounds of that beef had been cut away since one o'clock today, and with flashing eyes and a finger twinkling all over with rings, she pointed towards the guilty joint. Whether Maria had been dispensing secret charities or kept company with an occult policeman partial to roast beef, I do not know. But she looked very much alarmed and said, Indeed, and indeed, Mom, she had not touched a morsel of it, not she.
Confound the beef, says Clive carving on. She has been cutting it, cries the campaigner, bringing her fists down with a thump upon the table. Mr. Pandanus, you saw the beef yesterday. Eighteen pounds it weighed, and this is what comes of it, as if there was not already ruin enough in the house. D.N. the beef, cries out Clive. No, no. Thank God for our good dinner. Benedicti benetecamis. Cliving my boy, says the Colonel in a tremulous voice. Swear on, sir. Let the child hear your oaths. Let my blessed child, who is too ill to sit at table and picks her bite, sweet bread on her sofa, which her poor mother prepares for her, Mr. Pendennis, which I cook it, and gave it to her with these hands. Let her hear your curses and blasphemies, Clive Newcomb.
They are loud enough." Do let us have a quiet life, groans out, Clive, and for me, I must confess, I kept my eyes steadily down upon my plate, nor dared to lift them until my portion of cold beef had vanished. No further outbreak took place until the appearance of the second course, which consisted, as the ingenious reader may suppose, of the plum pudding, now in a grilled state. And the remnant of mince pies from yesterday's meal. Maria, I thought, looked particularly guilty as these delicacies were placed on the table. She set them down hastily, and was operating an instant retreat. But the campaigner shrieked after her. Who has eaten that pudding? I insist upon knowing who has eaten it. I saw it at two o'clock when I went down to the kitchen and fried a bit for my darling child, and there's pounds of it gone since then.
There were five mince pies, Mr. Van Dennis. You saw yourself there were five that went away from table yesterday. Where's the other two, Maria? You leave the house this night, you thieving, wicked wretch, and I'll thank you to come back to me afterwards for a character. Thirteen servants have we had in nine months, Mr. Pendennis, and this girl is the worst of them all, and the greatest liar, and the greatest thief. At this charge, the outraged Maria stood up in arms, and, as the phrase is, gave the campaigner as good as she got. Go, wouldn't you go? Pay her her wages, and let her go out of that L upon earth. It was Maria's prayer. It isn't you, sir, she said, turning to Clive. You are good enough and works hard enough to get the guineas which you give out to pay that doctor, and she don't pay him, and I see five of them in her purse, wrapped up in paper.
Myself I did, and she abuses you to him, and I heard her, and Jane Black, who was here before, told me she heard her. Go! Won't I go? I despise your puddings and pies. And with a laugh of scorn, this rude Maria snapped her black fingers in the immediate vicinity of the campaigner's nose. I will pay her her wages, and she will go this instant," says Mrs. McKenzie, taking her purse out. Pay me with them sufferings that you have got it, wrapped up in paper. See if she haven't, Mr. Newcomb. The refractory waiting-room cried out, and again she laughed a strident laugh. Mrs. McKenzie briskly shut her portmone eye and rose up from table, quivering with indignant virtue. "'Go!' she exclaimed. "'Go and pack your trunks this instant.
"'You quit the house this night, "'and a policeman shall see to your boxes before you leave it.' Whilst uttering this sentence against the guilty Maria, the campaigner had intended, no doubt, to replace her purse in her pocket, a handsome filigree game crackle pour roses, one of the relics of former splendors. But, agitated by Maria's insolence, the trembling hand missed the mark, and the purse fell to the ground. Maria dashed at the purse in a moment, with a scream of laughter shook its contents upon the table. And sure enough, five little packets wrapped in paper rolled out upon the cloth, besides banknotes and silver and gold and coin. "'I'm to go, am I? I'm a thief, am I?' screamed the girl, clapping her hands.
"'I saw him yesterday when I went a-lacing of her, and thought of that poor young man working night and day to get the money. Me a thief? Indeed!' I despise you, and I give you warning. Do you wish to see me any longer insulted by this woman, Clive? Mr. Pendennis, I am shocked that you should witness such horrible vulgarity, cries the campaigner, turning to her guest. Does the wretched creature suppose that I, I who have given thousands, I who have denied myself everything, I who have spent my all in support of this house, and Colonel Newcomb knows whether I have given thousands or not, and who has spent them, and who has been robbed, I say, and... Hear you, Maria. Go about your business, shouted out Clive Newcomb.
Starting up, go and pack your trunks if you like, and pack this woman's trunks too. Mrs. Mackenzie, I can bear you no more. Go in peace, and if you wish to see your daughter, she shall come to you. But I will never, so help me God, sleep under the same roof with you, or break the same crust with you, or bear your infernal cruelty, or sit to hear my father insulted, or listen to your wicked pride and folly more. There has not been a day since you thrust your cursed foot into our wretched house, but you have tortured one and all of us. Look here, at the best gentleman, and the kindest heart in all the world, you fiend, and see to what a condition you have brought him. Dearest father, she is going, do you hear?
She leaves us, and you will come back to me, won't you? Great God, woman, he gasped out. Do you know what you have made me suffer? What you have done to this good man? Pardon, father, pardon. And he sank down by his father's side, sobbing with passionate emotion. The old man, even now, did not seem to comprehend the scene. When he heard that woman's voice in anger, a sort of stupor came over him. "'I am a fiend, am I?' cries the lady. "'You hear, Mr. Vendennis. This is the language to which I am accustomed. I am a widow.'" And I trusted my child and my all to that old man. He robbed me, and my darling of almost every farthing we had. And what has been my return for such baseness? I have lived in this house, and toyed like a slave.
I have acted as servant to my blessed child. Night after night I have sat with her, and month after month, when her husband has been away, I have nursed that poor innocent, and the father having robbed me, the son turns me out of doors. A sad thing it was to witness, and a painful proof how frequent were these battles, That, as this one raged, the poor little boy sat almost careless, whilst his bewildered grandfather stroked his golden head. It is quite clear to me, madam, I said, turning to Mrs. Mackenzie, that you and your son-in-law are better apart, and I came to tell him today of a most fortunate legacy, which has been left to him. "'And which will enable him to pay you tomorrow morning every shilling, every shilling which he does not owe you.
"'I will not leave this house until I am paid every shilling, of which I have been robbed,' hissed out Mrs. Mackenzie. And she sat down, folding her arms across her chest. "'I am sorry,' groaned out Clive, wiping the sweat off his brow. "'I used a harsh word. I will never sleep under the same roof with you.' Tomorrow, I will pay you what you claim, and the best chance I have of forgiving you the evil which you have done me is that we never should meet again. Will you give me a bed at your house, Arthur? Father, will you come out and walk? Good night, Mrs. McKenzie. Penn Dennis will settle with you in the morning. You will not be here, if you please, when I return. And so, God forgive you, and farewell.
Mrs. Mackenzie, in a tragic manner, dashed aside the hand which poor Clive held out to her, and disappeared from the scene of this dismal dinner. Boy presently felt a-crying. In spite of all the battle and fury, they were asleep in his eyes. "'Maria is too busy, I suppose, to put him to bed,' said Clive, with a sad smile. "'Shall we do it, Father?' "'Come, Tommy, my son.'" And he folded his arms round the child, and walked with him to the upper regions. The old man's eyes lighted up. His seared thoughts returned to him. He followed his two children up the stairs, and saw his grandson in his little bed. And as we walked home with him, he told me how sweetly Boy said, Our Father, and prayed God bless all those who loved him, and they laid him to rest.
So these three generations had joined in that supplication, the strong man, humbled by trial and grief, whose loyal heart was yet full of love, the child of the sweet age of those little ones, whom the blessed speaker of the prayer first bade to come unto him. And the old man, whose heart was well nigh as tender and as innocent, and whose day was approaching, when he should be drawn to the bosom of the eternal pity.
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80 80 - Chapter 80: In which the Colonel says “Adsum” when his Name is called 32:02
The Newcombs by William Makepeace Thackeray Chapter 80 In which the Colonel says add some, when his name is called. The vow which Clive had uttered, never to share bread with his mother-in-law or sleep under the same roof with her, was broken on the very next day. A stronger will than the young man's intervened, and he had to confess the impotence of his wrath before that superior power. In the forenoon of the day following that unlucky dinner, I went with my friend to the banking house, where the Mr. Luce's letter directed us, and carried away with me the principal sum, in which the campaigner said Colonel Newcomb was indebted to her, with the interest accurately computed and reimbursed. Clive went off with a pocketful of money to the dear old poor brother of Greyfriars, and he promised to return with his father, and dine with my wife in Queen Square.
I had received a letter from Laura by the morning's post, announcing her return by the express train from Newcomb, and desiring that a spare bedroom should be got ready for a friend who accompanied her. On reaching Howland Street, Clive's door was opened, rather to my surprise, by the rebellious maid-servant who had received her dismissal on the previous night, and the doctor's carriage drove up as she was still speaking to me. The polite practitioner sped upstairs to Mrs. Newcomb's apartment. Mrs. McKenzie In a robe de chambre and cap, very different from yesterday's, came out eagerly to meet the physician on the landing. Ere they had been a quarter of an hour together, arrived a cab, which discharged an elderly person with her band box and bundles.
I had no difficulty in recognizing a professional nurse and the newcomer. She, too, disappeared into the sick room. And left me sitting in the neighboring chamber, the scene of the last night's quarrel. Hither presently came to me Maria, the maid. She said she had not the heart to go away now she was wanted, that they had passed a sad night, and that no one had been to bed. Master Tommy was below, and the landlady taking care of him. The landlord had gone out for the nurse. Mrs. Clive had been taken to bed after Mr. Clive went away the night before. Mrs. McKenzie had gone to the poor young thing, and there she went on, crying and screaming and stamping, as she used to do in her tantrums, which was most cruel of her, and made Mrs.
Clive so ill. And presently the young lady began, my informant told me. She came screaming into the sitting room, her hair over her shoulders, calling out she was deserted, deserted, and would like to die. She was like a madwoman for some time. She had fit after fit of hysterics, and there was her mother, kneeling and crying and calling out to her darling child to calm herself. "'Which it was all her own doing, and she had much better have held her own tongue,' remarked the resolute Maria. "'I understood only too well from the girl's account what had happened, and that Clive, if resolved to part with his mother-in-law, should not have left her, even for twelve hours, in possession of his house.' The wretched woman, whose self was always predominant, and who, though she loved her daughter after her own fashion, never forgot her own vanity or passion, had improved the occasion of Clive's absence, worked upon her child's weakness, jealousy, ill-health, and driven her, no doubt, into the fever which yaundered physician was called to quell.
The doctor presently enters to write a prescription, followed by Clive's mother-in-law, who had cast Rose's fine cashmere shawl over her shoulders to hide her disarray. "'You hear still, Mr. Pandena?' she exclaims. "'She knew I was there. Had not she changed her dress in order to receive me?' "'I have to speak to you for two minutes on important business, and then I shall go,' I replied gravely. "'Oh, sir, to what a scene you have come! To what a state has Clive's conduct last night driven, my poor child!' As the odious woman spoke so, the doctor's keen eyes, looking up from the prescription, caught mine. "'I declare before heaven, madam,' I said heartly, "'I believe you yourself are the cause of your daughter's present illness, as you have been of the misery of my friends.'" "'Is this, sir,' she said, breaking out, "'is this language to be used to?' "'Madam, will you be silent,' I said.
"'I am come to bid you feel well on the part of those whom your temper has driven into infernal torture. I am come to pay you every halfpenny of the sum which my friends do not owe you, but which they restore. Here is the account, and here is the money to settle it.' And I take this gentleman to witness, to whom, no doubt, you have imparted what you call your wrongs. The doctor smiled and shrugged his shoulders. That now you are paid. A widow, a poor, lonely, insulted widow, cries the campaigner, with trembling hands, taking possession of the notes. And I wish to know," I continued, when my friend's house will be free to him, and he can return in peace. Here Rose's voice was heard from the inner apartment screaming, Mama!
Mama! I go to my trial, sir, she said. If Captain McKenzie had been alive, you would not have dared to insult me so. And carrying off her money, she left us. "'Cannot she be out of the house?' I said to the doctor. "'My friend will never return until she leaves it. It is my belief she is the cause of her daughter's present illness.' "'Not altogether, my dear sir. Mrs. Newcomb was in a very, very delicate state of health. Her mother is a lady of impetuous temper, who expresses herself very strongly—too strongly, I own.' In consequence of unpleasant family discussions, which no physician can prevent, Mrs. Newcomb has been very brought up to a state of agitation. Her fever is, in fact, at present very high.
You know her condition. I am apprehensive of ulterior consequences. I have recommended an excellent and experienced nurse to her. Mr. Smith, the medical man at the corner, is a most able practitioner. I shall myself call again in a few hours, and I trust that, after the event which I apprehend, everything will go well. "'Cannot Mrs. Mackenzie leave the house, sir?' I asked. Her daughter cries out for her at every moment. Mrs. McKenzie is certainly not a judicious nurse, but in Mrs. Newcomb's present state, I cannot take upon myself to separate them. Mr. Newcomb may return, and I do think and believe that his presence may tend to impose silence and restore tranquility. I had to go back to Clive with these gloomy tidings.
The poor fellow must put up a bed in his studio, and there await the issue of his wife's illness. I saw Thomas Newcomb could not sleep under his son's roof that night. That dear meeting, which both so desired, was delayed. Who could say for how long? The Colonel may come to us, I thought. Our old house is big enough. I guessed who was the friend coming in my wife's company, and pleased myself by thinking that two friends, so dear, should meet in our home. Bent upon these plans, I repaired to Greyfriars and to Thomas Newcomb's chambers there. Bayham opened the door when I knocked, and came towards me with a finger on his lip, and a sad, sad countenance. He closed the door gently behind him and led me into the court.
Clive is with him, and Miss Newcomb. He is very ill. He does not know them, said Bayham with a sob. He calls out for both of them. They are sitting there, and he does not know them. In a brief narrative broken by more honest tears, Fred Bayham, as we paced up and down the court, told me what had happened. The old man must have passed a sleepless night, for on going to his chamber in the morning his attendant found him dressed in his chair, and his bed undisturbed. He must have sat all through the bitter night without a fire, but his hands were burning hot, and he rambled in his talk. He spoke of someone coming to drink tea with him, pointed to the fire, and asked why it was not made. He would not go to bed, though the nurse pressed him.
The bell began to ring for morning chapel. He got up and went towards his gown, groping towards it as though he could hardly see, and put it over his shoulders, and would go out. But he would have fallen in the court if the good nurse had not given him her arm. And the physician of the hospital, passing fortunately at this moment, who had always been a great friend of Colonel Newcomb's, He insisted upon leading him back to his room again and got him to bed. When the bell stopped, he wanted to rise once more. He fancied he was a boy at school again, said the nurse, and that he was going in to Dr. Rain, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago. So it was that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late.
Grief and years and humiliation And care and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas Newcomb was stricken down. Bayham's story told, I entered the room over which the twilight was falling, and saw the figures of Clive and Ethel seated at each end of the bed. The poor old man within it was calling incoherent sentences. I had to call Clive from the present grief before him, with intelligence of further sickness awaiting him at home. Our poor patient did not heed what I said to his son. You must go home to Rosa, Ethel said. She will be sure to ask for her husband, and forgiveness is best, dear Clive. I will stay with Uncle. I will never leave him. Please, God, he will be better in the morning when you come back.
Sir Clive's duty called him to his own sad home, and the bearer of tismal tidings, I returned to mine. The fires were lit there, and the tables spread, and kind hearts were waiting to welcome the friend who never more was to enter my door. It may be imagined that the intelligence which I brought alarmed and afflicted my wife and Madame de Florac, our guest. Laura immediately went away to Rose's house to offer her services if needed. The accounts which she brought thence were very bad. Clive came to her for a minute or two, but Mrs. Mackenzie could not see her. Should she not bring the little boy home to her children, Laura asked, and Clive thankfully accepted that offer. The little man slept in our nursery that night and was at play with our young ones on the morrow.
Happy. And unconscious of the fate impending over his home. Yet two more days passed, and I had to take two advertisements to the Times newspaper on the part of poor Clive. Among the announcements of births was printed, on the 28th, in Holland Street, Mrs. Clive Newcomb of a son still born. And a little lower, in the third division of the same column, appeared the words, on the 29th. In Howland Street, age twenty-six, Rosa, wife of Claude Newcomb, Esquire. So one day shall the names of all of us be written there, to be deplored by how many, to be remembered how long, to occasion what tears, praises, sympathy, censure. Yet for a day or two, while the busy world has time to recollect us, who have passed beyond it, So this poor little flower had bloomed for its little day, and pined and withered and perished.
There was only one friend by Clive's side following the humble procession which laid poor Rosa and her child out of sight of a world that had been but unkind to her. Not many tears were there to water her lonely little grave. A grief that was akin to shame and remorse humbled him as he knelt over her. Poor little harmless lady! No more childish triumphs and vanities! No more hidden griefs! Are you to enjoy or suffer? And earth closes over your simple pleasures and tears. The snow was falling and whitening the coffin as they lowered it into the ground. It was at the same cemetery in which Lady Q was buried. I dare say the same clergyman rate the same service over the two graves, as he will read it for you or any of us tomorrow, and until his own turn comes.
Come away from the place, poor Clive. Come sit with your orphaned little boy, and bear him on your knee, and hug him to your heart. He seems yours now, and all a father's love may pour out upon him. Until this hour, fate uncontrollable and homely tyranny had separated him from you. It was touching to see the eagerness and tenderness with which the great strong man now assumed the guardianship of the child and endowed him with his entire wealth of affection. The little boy now ran to Clive whenever he came in and sat for hours prattling to him. He would take the boy out to walk. And from our windows we could see Clive's black figure striding over the snow in St. James's Park, the little man trotting beside him, or perched on his father's shoulder.
My wife and I looked at them one morning as they were making their way towards the city. He has inherited that loving heart from his father, Laura said, and he is paying over the whole property to his son. Clive, and the boys sometimes with him, used to go daily to Greyfriars, where the colonel still lay ill. After some days the fever which had attacked him left him, but left him so weak and enfeebled that he could only come from his bed to the chair by his fireside. The season was exceedingly bitter. The chamber which he inhabited was warm and spacious. It was considered unadvisable to move him until he had attained greater strength, until warmer weather. The medical man of the house hoped he might rally in spring.
My friend, Dr. Goodenough, came to him. He hoped too, but not with a hopeful face. A chamber, luckily vacant, hired by the colonels, was assigned to his friends, where we sate when we were too many for him. Besides his customary attendant, he had two dear and watchful nurses, who were almost always with him, Ethel and Madame de Florac, who had passed many a faithful year by an old man's bedside, who would have come, as to a work of religion, to any sick couch, much more to this one, where he lay for whose life she would once gladly have given her own. But our Colonel, We all were obliged to acknowledge was no more our friend of old days. He knew us again, and was good to everyone round him. As his wont was, especially when boy came, his old eyes lighted up with simple happiness, and with eager trembling hands, he would seek under his bedclothes, or the pockets of his dressing gown, for toys or cakes, which he had caused to be purchased for his grandson.
There was a little laughing, red-cheeked, white-headed gown boy of the school, to whom the old man had taken a great fancy. One of the symptoms of his returning consciousness and recovery, as we hoped, was his calling for this child, who pleased our friend by his archness and merry ways, and who, to the old gentleman's unfailing delight, used to call him Cod Colonel. Tell little F that Cod Colonel wants to see him. And the little gowned boy was brought to him, and the Colonel would listen to him for hours and hear all about his lessons and his play, and prattle almost as childishly about Dr. Rain as his own early school days. The boys of the school, it must be said, had heard the noble old gentleman's touching history and had all got to know and love him.
They came every day to hear news of him, sent him in books and papers to amuse him, and some benevolent young souls, God's blessing on all honest boys, say I, painted theatrical characters and sent them in to Claude Colonel's grandson. The little fellow was made free of gown boys, and once came thence to his grandfather in a little gown, which delighted the old man hugely. Boy said he would like to be a little-gown boy, and I make no doubt when he is old enough his father will get him that post and put him under the tuition of my friend Dr. Senior. So weeks passed away, during which our dear old friend still remained with us. His mind was gone at intervals, but would rally feebly. And with his consciousness returned his love, his simplicity, his sweetness.
He would talk French with Madame de Florac, at which time his memory appeared to awaken with surprising vividness. His cheek flushed, and he was a youth again. A youth of love and hope, a stricken old man, with a beard as white as snow covering the noble care-worn face. At such times he called her by her Christian name of Leonore. He addressed courtly old words of regard and kindness to the aged lady. Anon he wandered in his talk, and spoke to her, as if they were still young. Now, as in those early days, his heart was pure. No anger remained in it. No guile tainted it. Only peace and goodwill dwelt in it. Rose's death had seemed to shock him for a while, when the unconscious little boy spoke of it.
Before that circumstance, Clive had even forebore to wear mourning, lest the news should agitate his father. The colonel remained silent and was very much disturbed all that day, but he never appeared to comprehend the fact quite, and, once or twice afterwards, asked why she did not come to see him. She was prevented, he supposed. She was prevented, he said, with a look of terror. He never once otherwise alluded to that unlucky tyrant of his household, who had made his last year so unhappy. The circumstance of Clive's legacy he never understood, but more than once spoke of Barnes to Ethel, and sent his compliments to him, and said he should like to shake him by the hand. Barnes Newcomb never once offered to touch that honored hand, though his sister bore her uncle's message to him.
They came often from Bryan Stone Square. Mrs. Hobson even offered to sit with the colonel and read to him, and brought him books for his improvement. But her presence disturbed him. He cared not for her books. The two nurses whom he loved faithfully watched him, and my wife and I were admitted to him sometimes, both of whom he honored with regard and recognition. As for F. B., In order to be near his colonel, did not that good fellow take up his lodging in Cistercian Lane at the Red Cow? He is one whose errors, let us hope, shall be pardoned. Kia Multum Amavit. I am sure he felt ten times more joy at hearing of Clive's legacy than at thousands had been bequeathed to himself. May good health and good fortune speed him.
The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to flicker and fail. One evening the colonel left his chair for his bed in pretty good spirits, but passed a disturbed night, and the next morning was too weak to rise. Then he remained in his bed, and his friends visited him there. One afternoon he asked for his little gown-boy, and the child was brought to him, and sate by the bed with a very awe-stricken face, and then gathered courage, and tried to amuse him by telling him how it was a half-holiday, and they were having a cricket match with the St. Peter's boys in the green, and Greyfriars was in and winning. The colonel quite understood about it. He would like to see the game. He had played many a game on that green when he was a boy.
He grew excited. Clive dismissed his father's little friend and put a sovereign into his hand, and away he ran to say that Claude Colonel had come into a fortune and to buy tarts and to see the match out. I, Curry, little white-haired gown boy, heaven speed you, little friend. After the child had gone, Thomas Newcomb began to wander more and more. He talked louder. He gave the word of command, spoke Hindustani as if to his men. Then he spoke words in French rapidly, seizing a hand that was near him and crying, Toujours, toujours. But it was Ethel's hand which he took. Ethel and Clive and the nurse were in the room with him. The latter came to us, who was sitting in the adjoining apartment. Madame de Florac was there, with my wife and Mayim.
At the look in the women's countenance, Madame de Florac started up. "'He is very bad. He want us a great deal,' the nurse whispered. The French lady fell instantly on her knees and remained rigid in prayer." Some time afterwards, Ethel came in with a scared face to our pale group. "'He is calling for you again, dear lady,' she said, going up to Madame de Florac, who was still kneeling. And just now he said he wanted Pendennis to take care of his boy. "'He will not know you.' She hid her tears as she spoke. She went into the room, where Clive was at the bed's foot. The old man within it talked on rapidly for a while. Then again he would sigh and be still. Once more I heard him say hurriedly, "'Take care of him while I'm in India.' And then with a heart-rending voice he called out, "'Leonore!
Leonore!' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient's voice sank into faint murmurs. Only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep. At the usual evening hour, the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcomb's hands outside the bed feebly beat a time, and just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little and quickly said, "'Add some,' and fell back." It was the word we used at school when names were called. And lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of the Master. Two years ago, walking with my children in some pleasant fields near to Bern in Switzerland, I strayed from them into a little wood, and coming out of it presently, told them how the story had been revealed to me somehow.
Which for three and twenty months, the reader has been pleased to follow. As I write the last line with a rather sad heart, Penn Dennis and Laura, and Ethel and Clive, fade away into fable land. I hardly know whether they are not true, whether they do not live near us somewhere. They were alive, and I heard their voices, but five minutes since was touched by their grief. And have we parted with them here on a sudden, and without so much as a shake of the hand? It's yonder line, which I drew with my own pen, a barrier between me and Hades, as it were, across which I can see those figures, retreating and only dimly glimmering. Before taking leave of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, might he not have told us whether Miss Ethel married anybody finally?
It was provoking that he should retire to the shades without answering that sentimental question. But though he has disappeared as irrevocably as Eurydice, these minor questions may settle the major one above mentioned. How could Pendennis have got all that information about Ethel's goings on at Barton, and with Lord Q, unless she had told somebody? Her husband, for instance, who, having made Pendennis an early confidant in his amour, gave him the whole story. Clive, Pendennis writes expressly, is traveling abroad with his wife. Who is that wife? By a most monstrous blunder, Mr. Pendennis killed Lord Ferentosha's mother at one page and brought her to life again at another. But Rosie, who is so lately consigned to Kensal Green, It is not surely with her that Clive is traveling, for then Mrs.
McKenzie would probably be with them, to alive certainly. And the tour would be by no means pleasant. How could Pendennis have got all those private letters, etc., but that the Colonel kept them in a teak box, which Clive inherited and made over to his friend? My belief, then, is that in Fableland somewhere, Ethel and Clive are living most comfortably together, that she is immensely fond of his little boy, and a great deal happier now than they would have been had they married at first, when they took a liking to each other as young people. That picture of J.J.'s of Mrs. Clive Newcomb in the Crystal Palace exhibition in Fableland is certainly not in the least like Rosie, who we read was fair, but it represents a tall, handsome, dark lady who must be Mrs.
Ethel. Again, why did Penn Dennis introduce J.J. with such a flourish, giving us, as it were, an overture, and no peace to follow it? J.J.'s history, let me confidentially state, has been revealed to me, too, and may be told some of these fine summer months or Christmas evenings, when the kind reader has leisure to hear. What about Sir Barnes Newcomb, ultimately? My impression is that he is married again, and it is my fervent hope that his present wife bullies him. Mrs. Mackenzie cannot have the face to keep that money which Clive paid over to her, beyond her lifetime, and will certainly leave it and her savings to little Tommy. I should not be surprised if Madame de Montcontour left a smart legacy to the Pendennis children, and Lord Q stood godfather in case, in case Mr.
and Mrs. Clive wanted such an article. But have they any children? I, for my part, should like her best without, and entirely devoted to little Tommy. But for you, dear friend, it is as you like. You may settle your fable land in your own fashion. Anything you like happens in fable land. Wicked folks die apropos. For instance, that death of Lady Q was most artful, for if she had not died... Don't you see that Ethel would have married Lord Farentosh the next week? Annoying folks are got out of the way. The poor are rewarded. The upstarts are set down in Fable Land. The frog bursts with wicked rage. The fox is caught in his trap. The lamb is rescued from the wolf, and so forth, just in the nick of time.
And the poet of Fable Land rewards and punishes absolutely. He splendidly deals out bags of sovereigns which won't buy anything, belabors wicked backs with awful blows which do not hurt, endows heroines with preternatural beauty, and creates heroes who, if ugly sometimes, yet possess a thousand good qualities, and usually end by being immensely rich, makes the hero and heroine happy at last, and happy ever after. Ah, happy, harmless fable-land, where these things are. Friendly reader, may you and the author meet there on some future day. He hopes so, as he yet keeps a lingering hold of your hand and bids you farewell with a kind heart. Paris, 28th June, 1855.